More Friends on the Other Side

Two parts of pastoring that I really like (along with all the others) are weddings and funerals. Weddings are great because the pastor has something that the "to-be-weds" want, power vested in me by the state of Texas to pronounce husband and wife. That being the case, a pastor can ask pointed questions and expect answers.

Funerals afford the opportunity to address people aware of their finiteness. Most people seem to plug along in life without considering that they will breathe a last breath and whatever needs to be done before that last breath, such as making peace with Holy God, can and should be attended to.

But today's funeral was good because it was for a man who for a year has been setting his house in order. Just a couple of weeks ago marked a year since his beloved, grade school aged granddaughter was killed in an accident. Now this man had been around church for all his life, but he had never secured a relationship with Jesus, the only way to the Father and to heaven. He was convinced that his granddaughter was in heaven, being of a tender age and unaccountable for sin, not fully understanding sin, God's hate of it, and His provision of Jesus to deal with it.

This man knew enough Bible to know the story of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), who each died - Lazarus opening his eyes in a place prepared for those who have trusted God - and the rich man in Hell, the place prepared for those whose sole focus is on themselves and their stuff. When the formerly rich man asked that Lazarus be sent with a drop of water to quench his thirst, he was informed that there was great gulf between those with God and those separated from God and no one could cross that chasm. The fellow we funeralized today said that he wanted to be on the same side of that gulf as his granddaughter. And he has spent the year reading his Bible, studying, meditating on scripture, attending and becoming part of our local church, and turning his life over to the control of Jesus.

His quest has not been just a church thing. The men he drank coffee with knew about his pursuit of God. His grown sons knew about his pursuit. And in the last few months he had them that he was not particularly anxious to die, but not at all afraid to die. He knew he would be on Jesus' side of the gulf.

His death was unexpected. It was a shock to see him in church Sunday and on Monday morning get a call saying he had suddenly dropped dead. But his funeral was easy because it was a celebration of victory in Jesus. Practically everybody in the small south Texas town where he had been a third-generation owner of a mercantile store knew him as a "good" man, honest, fair, generous...but in his 75th year he became God's man. And everyone who had been near him knew it.

I don't think that God caused a little girl died so that her grandfather would come to know Jesus as savior and Lord, but I believe God used that which seemed beyond comprehension to help a grandfather see that the Son of God died and was raised from the dead so that there would be eternal life for a little girl and her grandfather.

Anybody who attended that funeral heard about a man who sought and found God and it wasn't thousands of years ago. It was this year...but he is fixed up for thousands of years.