Death waits on no one

Death waits on no one, someone once said, or at least I believe they did. I had been stressing about the workload when I got the call.

I had so much work at the recent Kairos event, speaking six times in three plus days, then coming home to work on sermons for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, a service for Good Friday, then three services on Easter, that I was feeling overwhelmed.

Then I got the call.

 A man who was not a member of one of the churches but whom I had been visiting had died. That was a blessing, I thought, since he had been lingering after a stroke and then cancer in his brain that they would not treat.

But it was, and is since I've not yet worked on the sermon, more work. I began to think about what I wanted to say at his funeral, beginning the process preachers (even those of such little acclaim and talent as myself) know so well. Thoughts ran like adult rabbits through bramble and bush, scurrying into only God knows what.

 Then as I taught a Bible Study last night (oh, yes, four Bible Studies through that period I mentioned, as well), when we were discussing Jesus' last words from the cross: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me I began to find words for this funeral sermon. Jesus speaking to heaven and earth. Jesus saying what many of us feel when we've lost a loved one.

 Jesus quoting from Psalms 22. This ancient hymn, meant to be sung but equally effective screamed or whispered from the cross and hopefully from a funeral home pulpit, spoke to me about death and resurrection in a way I hadn't given thought.

 From those last few breaths we take when it might be more natural than ever to hope that the slide we've begun from life to the possible darkness of death is instead a slide to the light and the joy of a greeting and a smile from a shepherd.

The psalm takes us on that journey. From the loneliness of the beginning to the discouragement of the middle to the joy of the end. The psalm talks of dogs surrounding us, which we all feel from time to time. Of bones being evident, of clothing cast for lots and it brings to mind the last 12 hours of Jesus' life, but somewhere it reminds us of the difficulties we face every day. The discouragement of those around us watching us die, or in some cases even the way we live, I take from this psalm.

But then, oh then it says..."For he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden his face from Him: But when He cried to Him, He heard."

He sees us in the joys of our midlife when kids are kids and life is grand. He watches as we age, when hair and flexibility begin to disappear. He hears our painful screams when we wish to be with him at least as much as we wish to be with the ones we've loved so very long.

Then He hears our death cry when the journey that seemed so long turns out to be just a breath in eternity and we linger no more and we take that final, final journey into His arms. Death waits on no one, but He does. Death comes to us all, but resurrection does, too.

And one day, one sweet day the Bible in this very psalm, the one in which Jesus quoted from for a reason, "All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust shall bow before him. Even he who cannot keep himself alive. That is resurrection talk. The dead can't do much bowing in bodies that are turned to dust.

 No, sir. Death does no wait for anyone, but Jesus does.