Cemetery Thoughts

Today as I left the cemetery and the moment of committal for one I claim as family and who claimed me in the same way, I thought of the many cemeteries of my life.  The first one remembered is the one in which my father is buried.  I was seven years old when I made that first trip.  In the years that followed my mother would often visit his grave after an afternoon of visiting with family at the home place.  It was a country graveyard at the end of several sandy dirt roads that at the end took us to a ford of a blackwater creek which ran across the road.  With night falling, my sister and I would sit in the backseat shaking in fear only to hear my mother say to us, "There is nothing to fear here."    

She was right, of course.  Mothers have a way of being right.  I have learned over the years that there is nothing to fear in those places which once upon a time long ago seemed so full of things to fear.  The faith in Christ which has grown in me has also taught me that there is nothing to fear in the graveyard, but it has gone far beyond this assurance to tell me that death is not to be feared.  The Apostle Paul wrote some incredible words in his letter to the Corinthian Church.  "Listen, I will tell you a mystery!  We will not all die, but we will be changed.  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet....Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting.?"  (I Corinthians 15:52, 54-55).   The Apostle Paul knew that death had no sting because he knew of the power of the resurrection.  He knew the Christ who said,  "...because I live, you also will live."  (John 14:19).  

The man whose body we committed to the ground today was also one whose spirit we commended to God for He was one who also knew the Christ and believed in the power of Christ to deliver us from death.  My mother was right.  There is nothing to fear in graveyards.  The last word from the graveyard was the word spoken at the empty tomb to the women who came to mourn, "He is not here, He is risen." (Luke 24:6).  There is nothing to fear in graveyards and there is nothing to fear when we come to the moment of dying for Christ has risen and He has opened up the way Home for us.