For Susan

One of the lines that I often use is "until I die or the Second Coming, whichever comes first." At the end of every life, there comes that moment when the phrase becomes "until the Second Coming." In recent years, there has been a lot of noise about not mourning a death, but instead, celebrating a life.  I want to mourn a death.

I only met her once.  She was 88 and very pleasant.  I'm not sure she remembered me after I walked out of the room, or knew who I was.  I met her on Easter, four days ago.  She died today.  I can't celebrate her life, because I hardly knew her in life.  I can mourn her death.

Some people cry at weddings, any wedding.  This morning, people will be awakening early to watch a wedding of people they will never meet, getting married several thousand miles away.  And they will cry.  Most people cry at funerals.  Strangely, my family seems to be exceedingly British in this regard and tries to maintain a stiff upper lip, as they say.  But we do mourn, in our own way.  Why do we cry at weddings?  Why do we mourn at funerals?

Jesus is called our bridegroom in scripture.  The wedding is used as an analogy for the relationship between Jesus and his elect.  We cry at weddings perhaps because in this analogy, we understand and appreciate the sacrifice that Jesus has made for us to be our bridegroom.  The timing of this wedding after Easter surely was not accidental.  The symbolism is unmistakable.  The bridegroom who sacrifices all for His bride moves us to tears.  At each wedding, we can see that symbolism on display as we listen to the vows.

At death, we suffer the penalty for our condition of sin.  At death, we who survive get a glimpse of the meaning of the Wrath of God.  We are separated from those we love.  And that separation has a permanance to it.  That death cannot be undone by our meager means.  At death, we have every reason to mourn.  That death awaits us, too.  That is why we might cry at any funeral.  Every funeral reminds us that all of us are Covenant members with Adam.

Easter was four days ago.  On that day, some 2000 odd years ago, something different happened.  Death was defeated.  God, whose Wrath we have so justly earned, went on a rescue mission.  We needed saving and He had to do it.  The saving had to be by God, and it needed to be by a human.  Jesus was both.  He died.  But on the third day, He rose again.  He became the firstborn from the dead.  When we talk about Jesus as the firstborn, this doesn't mean that He was in existance before Adam, but after the Father.  It means that of all humans, He was the firstborn from the dead.  He had to be both fully God and fully human to pull off that deed.  But, it is done.

Now, the rest of the humans still die.  We still die because we are all still in the Covenant of Adam.  We are still under the curse.  We will remain under the curse until we die or the Second Coming of Jesus, whichever comes first.  We, the elect, will still die.  For one person who died today, it is now until the Second Coming.  I will mourn her death.  But I will await His Coming in Glory.  In That Death and Firstborn, there is a life worth celebrating.  We will inherit that life on the Last Day, or when we die, whichever comes first.

--Ogre--