May
16
2008
Jesus Doesn’t Do Funerals
I had to travel this week to Dallas which gave me an opportunity to do a lot of reading and writing. I brought this book with me that I mentioned the other day, This Beautiful Mess by Rick Mckinley, that my friend David Kopp sent me. I haven’t carefully read the whole thing, but what I’ve read so far I like. It’s well written, easy to read, and, like every good book, will at times make you laugh and at other times make you cry.
Here is a portion that started off making me very sad but my sadness quickly turned to out-loud laughter. What he says is so true:
Recently, my friend Scott was killed. I went to the graveside with his family to lead the memorial. The whole time there in the graveyard we felt the sting of death. The awful mess of grief and rage and unfairness was right there under our feet. I hated it.
But no one dies in the kingdom of God. It is in the kingdom of Satan, our enemy, where death reigns. A pastor friend of mine told me that as he was preparing for a funeral once, he decided to go through the Gospels to see how Jesus dealt with funerals. What he discovered was that Jesus did not care for them much. Every one He went to He raised the person from the dead. Jesus doesn’t do funerals, not even his own.