Sunday, April 20, 2014

Easter thoughts



Lives again our glorious King,
Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting?
Alleluia!
Dying once He all doth save,
Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave?
Alleluia!



Easter is my favorite holiday.  Every year, I am more moved by the sacrifice Jesus made so that I might be reconciled with God.

In our line of work, we deal death.  It is, in fact, our livelihood, which is strange in so many ways.  But because it is what we do, I think about death perhaps more than the average person, and I believe that is why Easter becomes more precious to me every year.  

Death is ugly.  It is wrong.  It is a corruption of our Father's plan for us, and it touches us all.  You don't have to be in the funeral business to know that the sights, smells and sounds of dying and death are hard, and sometimes horrific.  Our culture may in many ways market and glamorize violence and death, but the truth is that when a life ends, it is a humbling and heart breaking experience.  

Part of our job is to take death, clean it up, dress it up and make it seem somehow...less dead.  It's a strange business, and while I totally believe in the value of our services in providing closure for those left behind, we cannot change a thing.  Our best efforts cannot change the reality of the grave that waits for us all.

But Jesus did.

Because of Easter, death is defeated.  Our physical bodies will fail, but we do not need fear the grave.  Every single year when I sing these words, a get a lump in my throat and my eyes well with tears.  My mind fills with images of people I have known and loved,  whose weak and broken bodies have failed them, and I know that the grave cannot hold them any more than it held our Lord. 

Where, O death, is now thy sting?

Happy Easter!