In 200 Years - June 5 Readings: 2 Samuel 16-17, John 11:1–27, Psalm 70, Proverbs 14:18–19

Links to June 5 Readings: 2 Samuel 16-17, John 11:1–27, Psalm 70, Proverbs 14:18–19

Yesterday, I walked with my oldest son and my wife through the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts. As I walked around reading tombstones, many 200 or more years old, I was struck with the brevity of life. For most of these people, the only memory that remains is their name engraved on a tombstone. Of course, that cemetery also has "Author's Ridge" where famous writers like Louisa May Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Nathaniel Hawthorne are buried with their families. People come to see those graves (and leave pens and pencils at the graves as a tribute) and still read their books. But they, like the unknown masses, are still gone and still buried.

Life is short. Death awaits each of us at the end of life and there is nothing we can do about that. "It has been given to man to die once and after that to face judgment." There is nothing you can do about.

But Jesus changed everything.

In two hundred years, if this world continues, I will be laying in a grave somewhere, unknown except for what is chiseled on the marker. Perhaps someone will pass and wonder about my life as we wondered about those folks whose graves we walked past today.

But I will not be in that grave that day. Oh, my body still will be (perhaps). But I will be in the presence of the Lord, in glory, awaiting the resurrection of the dead. And it is all because of Jesus.

Jesus was called to the graveside of a loved one, a friend named Lazarus. Mary and Martha were grieving, and Martha even spoke some accusatory words to the Savior. "If only you'd been here..." Is it reading too much in to hear the words, "Where were you when we needed you?" But Jesus assured here that something wonderful was about to happen (it did) and then he said this:

“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in Me, even if he dies, will live. Everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever. Do you believe this?”

The Bible does not tell us simply that Jesus will raise us from the dead. No. It tells us that he IS the resurrection from the dead. He does not simply GIVE us life. Jesus IS life. Everything we want and need comes to us through him. 

In 200 years I will be forgotten on earth, a memory only to someone who might perhaps been tracing his genealogy or who is examining old graveyards. But I will not be forgotten by the God of heaven. I will be experiencing life I could never imagine here on earth because Jesus took me as his own, because I have been included in Christ and because I am his. 

That changes everything. 

Father, I thank you for your son, my Savior, who is my life eternal and abundant. Because of him I have life and hope not only for this world, but for all of time and all of eternity.