The Human Lifetime and the Promises of God

Today I received word that I will be conducting a graveside/committal service completely on my own this Thursday, for a man named Paul who died this morning. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have to take on this responsibility alone, but the other two pastors happen to be on vacation. I pray that I will be effective in communicating the assurance of God’s love for the deceased, and the loved ones he leaves behind.

In less than three weeks I will officiate my first wedding. Marriage is the sacramental act in which God’s promise to bless, sustain, and strengthen human love is manifested in the union of two people. Few events in life are more joyous than the occasion of marriage.

The graveside and the wedding are two big milestones for me as a young minister, and the fact that they come in the same month is interesting to say the least.

The human lifetime is a remarkable mixture of both blessing and pain. How is it that we as humans have the capacity to experience unimaginable joy and beauty, and in the same lifetime, undergo immense sorrow and suffering? It seems almost cruel.

But what keeps us from going all the way and saying YES THIS IS A CRUEL LIFE, INDEED!? Is it mere optimism that keeps us away from making such a pronouncement? Is it believing that life contains more blessing than curse? By diluting death to the extent that it is no more than a passing into the next room?

If death is as real and as savage as we know it is, then why hesitate in saying that life in the end is in fact cruel?

But what if death—instead of being the ultimate mark of cruelty—was actually the unveiling of yet another one of God’s promises—the most audacious of all promises? What if the cruelest of all human experiences was pregnant with unspeakable blessing? And what if this “unspeakable blessing”—which some have called the resurrection of the dead—was more than just fanciful thinking? What if this promise of God has already been confirmed in the raising of the first born? What if the promise of the resurrection was a reality extended to all of creation?

Death, where is thy sting?