impending death

There have been a series of deaths in recent days.

And a series of funeral services coming up, of course - along with a series of services, talks and assemblies in both of the schools. The next two weeks will be full to overflowing - I'm trusting God's grace will be just the same!

Many faithful stalwarts in our congregation's life are getting on in years. The shadow of death inevitably looms quite large across the frontiers of our congregation's life.

These elderly folk are the visible reminders to us all of the former generations, the ones who've gone before us, and whose labour we are privileged to enter now and share. We really want to honour them, by building on the work they've done.

It's hard getting old. When your future is largely behind you, regrets and fears can subtly sort of infiltrate the soul.

With your living mainly done, you start to think you maybe didn't really do enough: you think of what you might have done and could have done and maybe even should have done.

But now, of course, you can't. The time and opportunity is gone.

You wonder what your dying will be like. You wonder just what happens when a corpse is all that's left. You wonder what awaits you at the judgment seat of God.

These are now no longer merely academic questions. These are where an ageing person's at.

What will our dying be like? The New Testament chooses not to say that Christians die: instead, we're told, we sleep. That's what it's like. A child going to sleep in her mother's or father's arms. Comforted, warm, and secure.

And we sleep with the prospect of waking refreshed, renewed, restored, a whole new day awaiting us, a day that's bright and clear and pulsing with adventure.

What happens when we die? A corpse, indeed, is all that's left - at least to human sight. There's been a separation. We are body and spirit together. That, from the start, has been the essence of humanity. God joined the two together, body and spirit, breathing life (spirit) into the dust of the earth.

So death does what we're told should not be done. Death separates what God has joined together. God is committed to remedying that. Resurrection (the joining together again of body and spirit) has been guaranteed. God will have the final word.

But before that day of resurrection comes, when at last we're clothed again with all those bodily senses which enable us to taste and see and hear and smell and touch (and thus enjoy to the full and revel in) the splendours and the beauty of God's handiwork - before that day we nonetheless are able to enjoy being in the presence of our Saviour God.

We depart this life and go to be with Christ. Which is far better.

We know something of this in our present experience on earth. There are times when we know God's presence, times when we're touched by his love, times when we sense his hand upon our lives. Such times as these transcend our physical senses. They're in a different realm. They're somehow beyond the body.

That knowledge of his presence, that awareness of his love, that sense of his kind hand upon his child - that's all part of the 'far better' thing which the Scriptures assure us is ours when as Christians we die.

What awaits us at the judgment seat of Christ? This can be a worry, even a fear. But it needn't be, and it's not meant to be. The gospel is clear and emphatic.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

Are you in Christ Jesus? Is your life wrapped up in his? Have you entrusted your life to him?

If so, then there is, as of now (and indeed as of long, long ago), no condemnation. None at all.

It's all been dealt with. All the doing has already been done. By Jesus. For you.

That's what makes it good news. For the Christian at any rate. And that's the key issue always. Is a person 'in Christ'? Are you 'in Christ'? That's the crucial transaction. That's the one thing you and I are to do.

What must we do to do the works God requires? Jesus was once asked. His reply was simple - "The work of God is this: to believe in the One he has sent."

Period.

Everything else has been done by him.

These are the things that we all need clear and settled in our hearts and minds. The ageing not least, but young and old alike.

Because death is coming to us all - and none of us can ever tell just when.