The Final Change

Sitting quietly under a canopy of lush green leaves in what is the coolest part of a hot summer days gives the spirit permission to roam into time and space that is apart from here but sure to come.  Rich green looking leaves will one day be brown, crinkled, and dancing to the ground.  It is inevitable.  Life is always changing around us even as invisible subtle changes are taking place within us.  There are many messages the Creation speaks to us on behalf of the Creator . These silent words about change should certainly be words heard by all of us; yet, we so often cling to the what is of the status quo with hands that will finally have to be pried loose.  

None of us are the person we were yesterday.  Yesterday we were conceived and the day after we were born and each day since then we have been on a journey that has taken us to strength and then toward weakness.  It is all a part of the plan of God for the creation of which we are apart.  Is there anything that grows so weak into death that it does not live again?  The tallest of these trees under which I sit on this afternoon will one day become a part of the earth, nurture it, and send forth new life from the ground enriched by its seeds and its nurturing power.  

The ancient man, Job, acknowledged this truth (Job 14:7-9) just before he asked the question, "If a man dies, shall he live again?" (Job 14:14) Centuries later the question Job cast heavenward would be answered with a finality that cannot be denied.  Jesus, the holy One come from heaven to dwell among us said on his way to his own death, "I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live..." (11:25).  Jesus did die as He said and so will all of us.  He also promised life beyond this life and in that final moment of taking off mortality for immortality. (I Corinthians 15:53), He will surely give it.