Nothing to Fear

My father's death in a mid air plane collision brought my family back to Waycross, Georgia which was home to my parents and also where our extended family lived.  Almost every Sunday afternoon my mother would take me and my sister out the old home place deep in the countryside.  By the time we left for home, it was usually dark.  But, before going home, my mother would drive to the Pierce Chapel Church cemetery where my father was buried.  Dirt roads took us there.  A creek always ran across the road just below the cemetery. 

 

For my sister and I it was a scary trip.  The wooded dirt roads were frightening enough, but then the journey always ended at a cemetery.  When we arrived, my mother would get out of the car and spend some time in the near darkness there at his grave.  My sister and I stayed in the car.  Afraid to be in such a place in the dark describes how we felt.  I remember we often called to her to hurry up because we were afraid. 

 

I remember what she told us.  "There is nothing to be afraid of here."  It was one of my first lessons in theology.  There is nothing to fear in graveyards.  Jesus took away any reason for fear.  Death no longer has the last word.   The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?"  (I Corinthians 15:54-55)  Remember, too, what the angels said to the women at the empty tomb, "Do not be afraid." (Matthew 28:5)   Know to be true on the next visit to the graveyard, "There is nothing to be afraid of here."