The Twinkling of an Eye

Today while attending a memorial service, a verse of Scripture not read bolted into my conscious thought.  It is a Word which the Holy Spirit prompted the Apostle Paul to write to the Corinthian Christians.  Found in that Resurrection Chapter, it reads, "Listen, I tell you a mystery!  We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...we will be changed"  (I Corinthians 15:51-52).  It is a verse which is certainly an appropriate Advent verse for it is eschatological in nature and even as this is true, it is a verse which reminds us how quickly we who are mortal and perishable put on immortality and the imperishable clothing of eternity.    

What really jolted me in the pew was the thought about how quickly life is changed by death.  "In the twinkling of an eye...we will be changed," the Word says.  While my thoughts admittedly raced beyond the scope of this verse, it pointed me toward an awareness that it is not only the dead who are changed, but also all those who remain to mourn.  Death may be regarded as the greatest change agent of them all.  Those who mourn and walk away to live the rest of their lives will do so, but no grieving survivor of loss remains the same.  As surely as the dead are given a new life, so are those who walk forward to find a new life without the one who has had a shaping power in their life.  

Those of us acquainted with grief born out of love know that going forward is to go forward into the realm of the becoming.  As we walk away from the grave, it is not clear who we shall become, but we walk away changed as in the twinkling of an eye and we begin a hard journey in which who we are to become will unfold before us.  The Word is true in what it says and even beyond.  In the twinkling of an eye, we shall all (the dead and the living) be changed.