The appointment with Death

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“It is destined for all men to die once, and after that comes the judgment.”

The writer of Hebrew spoke with certainty. The brother to whom I have been ministering in recent weeks had his appointment with death at 11:55 am last Thursday, August 23rd.

A couple of days before he died, he wavered in and out of sleep. During one of his wakeful moments, he confessed some final sins to me, and I said, “Brother, ‘Jesus forgives you.'” He squeezed my hand and said in a voice that was barely audible, “I just want to be with Jesus.”

Yesterday I preached his funeral at an Urbana, IL, funeral home. He had just turned 40 in June. Pancreatic cancer almost always hits people with a vengeance, and this fast-growing cancer is no respector of gender or age. As I tried to speak words of comfort from the Scriptures, I stood about 10 feet from his 39-year-old wife, his 17-year-old son, his 16-year-old daughter and his 10-year-old daughter.

I read from Ecclesiastes, saying “There is a time to be born and a time to die.”

Turning to the Gospel of John I reminded the 40 family members and friends in the audience, including his own mother and father who lost their only other son in a traffic accident some years earlier, that Jesus said there are many rooms in his Father’s mansion. “I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.”

Flipping my Bible to Romans chapter 8, I read: “Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God’s curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been growning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering.”

I read from the Psalms and from I Corinthians 15 where Paul says, “…the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

Near the end of the service I faced the closed casket and said, “Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in heaven. Amen.”

After the service the young widow told me she appreciated the service. Her 10-year-old daughter clung to your mommy’s dress and said she missed her daddy.

When I pulled out of the funeral home parking lot and headed back to the church, I rolled my windows down and slowly let out a big breath. At the first corner, I waited for two teen-age boys to cross through the crosswalk. They were drinking Cokes and laughing. The sky was crystal blue, and I could feel the afternoon sun penetrating the cloth of my dark suit.