Tag Archives: heaven

Ten More Seconds

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Churches around the world are celebrating All Saints’ Day today. Well, many are. I wonder about the ones that aren’t. Personally, I think they’re really missing out on something substantive.

I know a Christian’s salvation doesn’t depend on observing a particular day. But then again, life in general doesn’t depend on celebrating birthdays and anniversaries, either. Still, we do our best not to let such remembrances slip by unnoticed, if only because we love the ones we’re celebrating.

So, why not celebrate All Saints’ Day? As I wrote in my little volume Kids in the Divine Service, the Church sets the day aside to “thank God for the saints who have gone before us because of their great example of faith and God’s great mercy in their lives!” Essential to this is the promise that death will never have the final word for those who belong to Christ. Even better, it means Christians who die are not gone. Not really. They’re just away. And we’ll see them again. It seems to me that a day devoted to such things is worth observing. It’s certainly more deserving than something like the Super Bowl, which is another day folks put a lot of effort into celebrating.

There’s another aspect to the day that resonates with me. Admittedly, it maybe even hurts a little. It’s not necessarily a bad hurt. But that’s because it sees the visceral nature of separation from the ones we love through the Gospel lens. And by the way, notice I said, “ones we love,” not “ones we loved.” A relatively unsung part of the All Saints’ Day celebration is its present tense focus. Dead or alive, past or present, everyone who believes in Christ is, right now, a saint (a holy one set apart from the world and a part of God’s family), whether in the Church on earth (the Church Militant) or the Church in heaven (the Church Triumphant). From that perspective, even as we’re separated, mortal time and location begin losing their grip. In other words, death’s past-tense grammar doesn’t really fit the situation anymore. We don’t say of someone who died, “He was my friend.” That would be weird. It’s weird because he’s just somewhere else. And so, we say, “He is my friend.”

I know that was a little bit of a tangent. I meant to say something about the part that hurts—the separation—and I’ll bet plenty reading this know exactly what I mean by it before having to read any further. I first experienced it in its fullest measure when my brother Michael died back in July of 1995. I was there when his chest lifted and then fell, exhaling for the last time. In one second, he was there. The next, he wasn’t. And I wanted nothing more than to be with him. I knew I would one day. But that didn’t change the fact that, while driving home from the hospital, strangely, the song “Rocket Man” by Elton John happened to be playing on the radio, and the line “And I think it’s gonna be a long, long time” hit so incredibly hard that I nearly drove into a ditch.

I missed him so badly. Thirty-one years later, the separation is a little easier, but I still feel it.

Maybe to unpack this a little more, let me share something I might not normally share—a more intimate moment between Jennifer and me.

A few weeks ago, we were driving home from Rogers City, Michigan. We’d taken a few desperately needed days to get away from the demands of the pastoral life. As you might guess, it was one of those long drives that gives two people time to talk about everything and nothing. Somewhere along the way, our conversation turned to family, namely, to thanking God for His countless blessings given to us over the years.

I don’t remember precisely what prompted the thought, but at one point, I told Jennifer something I meant with every fiber of my being. I told her that if she were to die before I did, and someone—an angel maybe—suddenly showed up at my door with the genuine power to grant me ten more seconds with her, other than my faith in Jesus (because there’s nothing in this world worth surrendering my Lord), I’d give everything I own to have those seconds.

When I said everything, I meant everything. The house and everything in it. Whatever money I have. Every possession. Every earthly comfort. Every mental and motor skill. Everything. Again, my faith is the one exception. But everything else? Take it. In exchange for only ten seconds? Yes. I’d spend the rest of my life with absolutely nothing. And I’d accept the offer without even blinking.

I suppose someone out there reading this might consider it a foolish bargain. After all, what can anyone accomplish in ten seconds? I’d barely get a few words out before she’d be gone again. And then what? I’d have the rest of my days, except now I’d have nothing.

Trust me when I say that I understand the objection. Jen certainly gave hers. But I also understand the value of ten seconds when no more seconds are left. I was there when the doctor said there was nothing else they could do for my brother. I watched those nurses walk around his bed, removing tubes and turning off machines. If that were my lot with Jen, I’d already know each second’s gravity. Ten more seconds to see Jen smile again? Yes. Ten more seconds to hear her voice? Yes. Ten more seconds to hold her hand, feeling its warmth? Yes. Ten more seconds to tell her how much I love her, and to hear her say the same? Absolutely, yes.

Anyone who’s ever sat beside a hospital bed watching someone they love slip away, you know darn well what I mean by this.

I suppose this brings me back around to All Saints’ Day. There’s something worth considering here, especially for Christians.

In Psalm 90, we read a prayer attributed to Moses. Praying along, right in the middle of it, we ask, “Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (v. 12). Unfortunately, even as Christians, we remain remarkably good at counting so much of what doesn’t matter. We count the things we own. We count our money. Our curriculum vitae gets longer and longer as we chalk up our various accomplishments. We run ourselves ragged trying to keep up with this or that task, each piling on the one before it. That’s why I left for Rogers City with Jen. I was at my wits’ end from the demands. I’d become a genie in a bottle for too many, and I needed to get away.

But that’s not the point. The point is that we waste enormous amounts of time worrying about and doing and calculating things that will have no value or standing where faith is actually taking us. Meanwhile, the moments God gives us with the people we love pass by, one after another, and we rarely stop to consider their value until they’re no longer with us.

As a pastor who’s sat beside plenty of people in their last moments—and will likely sit beside plenty more—I always leave those events feeling the very real weight of Psalm 90’s words. I realize those words were written for people. I realize numbering our days means admitting that they’re actually numbered in the first place. But then I go home and hug my wife and children. That’s because I was reminded, once again, that time itself is a gift from God, and that each tick of the clock is incredibly valuable, and I want to apply my heart “unto wisdom,” using each as best I can.

It seems to me that All Saints’ Day is at least one day on the Church’s calendar when this very important realization comes a little more into focus.

But still, if you’ll give me a few more moments of your time, there’s a little more I want to say.

Don’t forget that for Christians, applying one’s heart “unto wisdom” begins and ends with Christ. That’s why I said I’d give up anything and everything for Jen except my faith. For as valuable as those ten seconds with her would be, the Gospel promises infinitely more time. By the power of the Holy Spirit for faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, I’m promised a place where she is, and in that place, a life unbound by time (John 14:19). The ten seconds I would surrender are hardly worth comparing to the eternity Christ has already purchased and won for both of us.

So, let’s be clear about something. All Saints’ Day is not about worshipping or praying or talking to or putting any mortal human being we love above Christ. Well, Confessional Lutherans aren’t doing anything like that. We’re thanking God for sending His Son so our family and friends who trusted in Him could be present in the Church Triumphant—where we want to be, too! But until we’re reunited, All Saints’ Day comforts us with the truth that the grave and the separation it appears to impose have an expiration date, and that while we can’t see or talk to our loved ones, one day, that’ll change, and the tears we shed now will eventually be wiped away by the very hands that were pierced for us, just as the reading from Revelation 7 appointed for All Saints’ Day declares (v. 17).

In the meantime, we’re mindful of the time we have with the saints who are still with us. We have opportunities to love them, laugh with them, forgive them, be forgiven by them, embrace them, and tell them what they mean to us. We have time to put aside the distractions, even for a little while, and pay attention to the living blessings sitting across the dinner table or riding beside us in the car.

None of us knows how long we’ll have with them, which makes even ten seconds worth everything. But again, by faith, we know eternity’s value. And together in Christ, we know that when we’re eventually separated, a glorious reunion is in our future. Indeed, and amen! We’ll be with them again in an eternal time and place where clocks cannot tick, and words like “separation” or “sadness” or “goodbye” lose all their meaning.

Death and Useless Sentiment

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This past Thursday, while many of my dearest friends were gathering in Lansing for the March for Life—a trip I genuinely wanted to make—I found myself in places far less energizing: doctors’ office waiting rooms. I was in two different locations that day. One of the appointments I’d scheduled mid-summer. And it was one of those “you’d better not reschedule this” kind of appointments. The other was one I didn’t anticipate. Regardless, I’ll admit I felt a little restless sitting beneath the fluorescent lights and watching the time tick by, all the while thinking of the better effort in Lansing. Of course, I prayed that the march would be impactful.

At the “you’d better not reschedule” appointment—a cardiologist’s office—I ended up in a conversation with someone a few seats away. We somehow wandered into the topic of death. I think I know why. At one point, I mentioned a friend from High School who had died this past Tuesday, someone I still considered relatively young, barely fifty-one. The exchange set the tone for what’s on my mind this morning. You may or may not appreciate what I’m about to write. Although it’s my keyboard, so there’s that. But more importantly, what I’m going to tell you echoes some of what we talked about.

I’ll just state the premise plainly: When death visits, it has become all too common for sentiment to replace reality. Now, let me explain.

Imagine for a moment you’re at a funeral. There, before you in the casket, is the deceased. It’s someone who had no time or inclination for faith—or maybe even denied the faith outright. Nevertheless, in death, suddenly—almost magically—the deceased is a believer. Suddenly, everyone gathered around the casket is speaking and acting as though the person had a devout (but entirely undetectable) trust in Jesus. And so, “He’s in a better place,” someone says. Or “She’s with the angels now,” another whispers.

How does this happen?

I suppose one reason people speak this way (although not the genuine point of what I intend to say) is that so many want to believe death is good. We say things like, “Death was her friend at the end.” But the Scriptures never speak of death as a friend. Death is the enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26). It is sin’s wage (Romans 6:23). And it is final (Hebrews 9:27). It is the moment when the curtain falls between time and eternity, when what a person believed—or refused to believe—is laid bare before the living God. And when death comes, this enemy reports there are no do-overs. I imagine the people hovering around the casket are secretly hoping there will be. They’re hoping that death, in its supposed kindness, will go easy on them.

But no matter how we try to recraft the moment, no matter what we do to make the moment palatable, death remains what it has always been. It is the world’s final intruder. And to pass death off as some sort of friend who comes along to take a person’s hand, in the end, is to cheapen the Lord’s war against death on the cross.

Christ did not come to make death poetic. He came to destroy it. If this is true, then the moments when death confronts us deserve a clarity that matches its seriousness. In other words, it’s no time for pretending.

Regrettably, I think some pastors, caught in the strange nether space between compassion and conviction, are pulled into this gush. I’ve experienced the pull before. Not so much anymore. But I do remember in the earlier days of my ministry the urge to choose words, not necessarily for truth’s sake, but to avoid offending onlookers during a sensitive moment. And yet, when the Church and her pastors do this—ultimately confusing comforting sentiment with truth—we’re really just betraying both.

I guess what I’m saying is that when we do this, we pave the way for so many to go wandering off into vague spirituality. And forget for a moment syrupy sentiments like the deceased is “looking down from heaven.” I’m talking more about faith-identifying descriptors that would somehow imply that an unbeliever is “at peace” or “in heaven now.” In other words, too many speak as though heaven were a natural right granted to the well-meaning with relatively respectable qualities. But again, the Bible knows nothing of such generalities. Salvation is not the automatic destination of the nice, the kind, or the merely religious. It is the gift of God through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). If you are not a believer, when you die, you are not at peace. You are in terrible suffering. And that place of suffering—hell—isn’t imaginary. It’s real, and it’s eternal.

I know that’s not easy to hear. I warned you at the beginning. But I suppose that’s also why I’m writing this. God’s standards are the ones that apply. Never our own. That means faith in Jesus is no small thing. That also means that funerals become unique opportunities for the living.

A few weeks ago, I happened to be sitting in a funeral director’s office near the facility’s front door when I heard an unfortunate conversation between a teenage girl and someone I’m guessing was her mother.

“Why are we here?” the young girl asked. “Funerals are stupid,” she continued, sounding half-annoyed, the way young people do when confronted with something they don’t understand. Her mother replied, “We’ll just stay for a little while and then go home.” I didn’t see the girl’s expression, but I’m guessing by her sigh that she rolled her eyes before adding, “I don’t want to be here. And who cares, anyway? He’s gone.”

Her words echo a world that no longer knows what to do with death. It doesn’t know what it means.

Of course, I don’t know the complexity of the girl’s relationship to the deceased. But let’s just assume the young girl meant exactly what she said. Had I been her parent, I would’ve shepherded her to a quiet corner and explained that of all places, a funeral is the time to know what’s true, not what’s comfortable. If there’s any moment when eternity should press in upon human hearts, it’s when we’re standing beside a casket. That’s when the thin veil between life and death is most real. It’s when our mortality is undeniable. Then I’d walk her to the casket. “Look in there,” I might say. “One day, that will be me. One day, that will be you. Then what?”

That’s the intrusive question no one wants to ask at a funeral, and yet it’s one of the only ones that matter. In one sense, funerals are mirrors held up to the living. They’re opportunities to strip away the noise of daily life and, if anything, to at least recall three very important things.

First, our time is unknown. Second, eternity is real. Third, what we believe—or refuse to believe—matters more than anything someone might say about us when we’re in the casket. A room full of mourners saying nice things and grasping at a hopeful but false future won’t make that future real. Not for the dead. Not for them.

I suppose that third detail brings me back around to where I started. When churches speak and act as if every soul is saved—as if everyone who dies is owed a Christian burial with Christian hymns, Christian prayers, and a Christian sermon, they teach the living that faith and its fruits don’t really matter, that repentance and trust in Christ are optional extras that can be conjured after the fact. This unclarity does not comfort the grieving. It anesthetizes them. It teaches them to believe in a sentimental fiction rather than in the Savior who conquered the cruelest enemy, death.

Plenty of folks have asked me what I like most about being a pastor. My first answer is always, “Baptizing babies!” I just love it. Next, I appreciate funerals. Funerals are where the rubber hits the road. If ever there was a time to proclaim the Law and Gospel clearly—the fact that we are sinners in need of a Savior, and that Savior is Jesus—it’s at a funeral.

At the same time, a funeral sermon is one of the heaviest burdens a pastor has to bear, especially when he somehow finds himself standing beside the casket of someone he knows was without faith. (And in case you think I’m “judging” someone’s heart, take a quick trip through the following texts: Matthew 7:16-20; Matthew 12:33-35; Luke 6:43-45; James 2:17-18; 1 John 1:6; 1 John 2:3-4; 1 John 3:9-10; Titus 1:16; Galatians 5:19-23.) Don’t get me wrong. Great care is needed when choosing one’s words in such situations. Still, there will be the temptation to believe that speaking truth in that moment is cruel and speaking falsehood is compassionate. But actually, the reverse will always be true.

To proclaim a false peace over the unbelieving dead is to rob the living of the Gospel’s urgency. It implies that Christ’s sacrifice was really no big deal—maybe even unnecessary—and that sin has no real consequences, and ultimately that heaven can be had without the narrow way of repentance and faith (Matthew 7:13-14). This kind of preaching might comfort for a moment in the funeral parlor, but in the end, it can only lead away from Christ and condemn for eternity.

A Christian pastor must lead the people to mourn honestly. He’s wasting oxygen when he points to the moral résumé of the deceased. His job is to point to the mercy of God in Christ—mercy which had been available to the one in the casket but is still available right now for the listeners. Doing this, the pastor is careful to communicate that God’s mercy is not cheap. It came at great cost to Christ. But He went into that combat supernal because He loves you, and He knew you could not defeat the last enemy, death.

That sits at the heart of the Gospel. When the Church loses this clarity, it loses its reason to exist. To be clear about these things is not cruel. It’s love. Real love.

Of course, Christians do not gloat over judgment. We grieve for the lost. But it’s a strange kind of grieving. It’s strange because we do it as ones who have hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13), but we know better than to hope in ourselves. Our hope is in Christ, who died for sinners. Holding to this hope, we are careful not to rewrite God’s Word to make the Gospel cheap, punching holes in it and then wiggling to fit every opinion through faith’s narrow gate.

The task of the Church is to proclaim what Christ has done, not to invent an easier gospel when death makes us uncomfortable. The world may prefer gentle lies. The Church must love her listeners enough to tell the truth.

Smiles and Laughter

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School is back in full swing. I know this not only because I see youthful academia’s vibrant commotion swirling into, through, and around every square inch of this church’s school building but also because I can most certainly hear it. Summertime is a quiet time around here. Autumn is not. It’s audibly occupied.

Perhaps the most notable sound is the laughter. Melancholy stands little chance when gleeful children are laughing. And the younger the child, the more potent his or her laughter is. A laughing baby is a room’s own sunshine. Anyone caught in the child’s sparkling beams will be swept up into laughter, too. Even a deaf person will experience it. That’s because a laughing child isn’t just heard but sensed. Anyone unmoved while children are laughing is either unconscious or paralyzed. There can be no other explanation.

Laughter is nuanced, though, isn’t it? It arrives in multiple carriages. I’ve always believed you can learn a lot about people by what they find funny. Life provides plentiful opportunities for humor. Laughing is healthy (Proverbs 15:15, 17:22). Still, a man drawn to filthy humor, laughing at sexually explicit, curse-word-laden comedy rather than disgusted by it, tells you something about him. Unfortunately, there is no age restriction relative to laughter’s sinister side. A playground of happy children running and jumping is one thing. A child who shoves another child and then points and laughs at her scraped knee is another. In such moments, laughter betrays humanity’s darker inclinations.

Since I’m already pondering these dichotomous things, I think smiles work the same way.

Speaking only for myself, a smile offered by a random passerby almost always brings me joy. No matter how I feel before receiving it, a chance smile can only nudge me toward better spirits. I don’t have to know why the person did it. The act is all that was needed.

This changes in other circumstances. Parents know it. While one child endures a parent’s reprimand, a nearby sibling smiles. Something else is happening in those moments. Through the character Donalbain, Shakespeare describes such scenes intuitively, saying, “There’s daggers in men’s smiles.” Sometimes, a smile communicates a gladness for our demise.

I suppose this means that a smile can also serve as a veil. It can be inexact or precise. A person trying to hide disappointment might do so through a passive smile. Staring, arms crossed, and tapping one foot, a smiling wife communicates disgust with her husband’s announced plans for a guys’ night out on her birthday.

The Bible doesn’t say much about God smiling. At least, I don’t know of texts that speak specifically of God smiling. Many folks use the phrase “God smiled on me,” and there are plenty of texts in which His smile might be implied. For example, the Aaronic Benediction in Numbers 6:24-26 comes to mind. There, God promises to shine His face on His people. This certainly has the sense of God’s gracious smile accompanying His compassionate care. Still, the word for shine (אוֹר) really only means to illuminate. In that sense, knowing that Christ is the Light of the world, I’m more inclined to say that God smiles on His people through His Son. Jesus is God’s friendliest glance and kindliest gesture. To see Jesus is to know God’s desire that we would be His friends, not His enemies.

On the other hand, the Bible does tell us that God laughs. Unfortunately, the Lord’s laughter is typically stirred by human foolishness. Indeed, we can be a funny bunch. King David describes sinful humanity’s pompous bellowing and God’s subsequent amusement (Psalm 59:7-8). In other words, God will sometimes laugh (שָׂחַק) at the ones who believe (as the saying goes) they’re “all that and a bag of chips” before Him. These same people tend to act viciously against God’s people, often thinking they’ve gotten the upper hand on us. As a result, God laughs, knowing a final day for vindication is coming (Psalm 37:12-13).

Whether smiling or laughing, the one thing we need to know is that God is not rooting for our destruction or doom (Ezekiel 18:32; Ezekiel 33:11; 1 Timothy 2:4-6; 2 Peter 3:9; Titus 2:11). With that, He does not find enjoyment in our pain. He does not grin at our sadness. He does not delight in losing us. It hurts Him as nothing we’ll ever fully know. This brings us back to Jesus.

God smiled at us at Golgotha when He frowned at Jesus, giving His Son over and into Sin’s deepest dreadfulness. God did this to make us righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21). He did this so that we would, by faith in Christ’s sacrifice, know the truest joys found only among heaven’s laughter (Philippians 3:20-21; Romans 6:23).

There’s indeed nothing like the laughter of children. However, nothing will compare to the ruckus made by the joyful children of God wandering the halls of eternal life’s mansion (John 14:2).

Genuine, joy-filled smiles.

Triumphantly authentic laughter.

By the person and work of Jesus Christ, these are guaranteed, and it’ll be impossible not to join in when you get there.