The Shortness of Life and How We Grieve

           Rosie and I have lost two friends to death recently.  Both of them had been parishioners of mine when I was the rector of Christ Church.  One man had been through a lot of grief, losing his son to a tragic automobile accident, and then his wife to cancer.  The other was a woman who was my long time vestry secretary.  She had had invaluable insight into what the vestries had done through the years.  We went to her funeral this past week and again thought about the shortness of life, the loss of friends, and how it is that we grieve. 

            Hardly a week goes by that both of us don’t think about death.  We are both getting older and the idea that we won’t be here forever is always before us.  We have made out living wills, and regular wills.  We have thought about what we want done when we die, but we haven’t written it all out yet.  We need to do that for the sake of the kids.  I remember when my dad died, my mother seemed to have it all in hand.  Her death was not hard for me to handle because she had told us that she wanted to be cremated and we buried her ashes in the Christ Church memorial garden. 

            Death is certainly a constant in all of our lives.  The ancient monks used to have skulls on their desks to remind them that their lives weren’t permanent.  There was an order of Capuchin monks        who created a scene in a crypt in Rome where skeletons were dressed in robes, with some of them kneeling in prayer.  There was a script written on the floor which said: What you are, we used to be.  What we are, is what you will become.  That is quite a statement to drum home the impermanence of our lives and how we need to constantly think in terms of the afterlife. 

            I am also attracted to John’s Gospel, particularly the 14^th chapter, verses one through six, where Jesus talks to his disciples about what was coming for him.  He begins by saying to them: Let not your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God always, trust also in me.  In my father’s house are many dwelling places.  If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place before you so that where I am, you may be also and my way there is known to you?  Thomas interrupts him to say, Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?

Jesus then says back to Thomas, I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except by me.  Not a very specific answer to Thomas, certainly not the answer he was looking for, but those words of Jesus have resonated down through Christian thought for two thousand years. 

            Those are words of comfort to all of us who one day face the certainty of death.  Our Lord has gone to prepare a place for us and will take us to himself.  We can be sure of that, despite all of the theological statements to the contrary.  We are loved by our God.  That is the best news we could ever hear.