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TheDiscipleMD

I was waiting patiently outside the assisted living facility for my wife,  when two men wheeled someone out the front door in a body bag,  and reverently started placing it in the back of the long black Hearse. My wife happened to come out the door at the same time. She walked over to the car, opened the passenger door and got in.  I asked her about the Hearse. She told me that a man had just died and his body was being taken to the morgue. We both watched as the Mortician finished placing the body in the limo, closed the back car doors, and then started to drive out of the facility. As the vehicle disappeared, I remarked to no one in particular, “If that’s the end of it all, life is a joke!”

A few days later I was curious about the man who had died so I looked up his obituary. He was 81 years old and was survived by his wife.  He had lived a full life. His obituary took up two pages and listed his life accomplishments as well as his religious affiliation and service that he had given to the church, and to the community at large. He spoke numerous languages, had served in the Army and had a distinguished career in business. He was survived by four children as well as thirteen grandchildren and several great-grandchildren. And now, what of this man?

I guess I could join some who say that life ends at death. It is such a tidy answer to the burning question that has haunted man since the days of Adam.  Yet, that answer feels so empty and pointless to me and to millions of others who have lived upon this planet. I choose instead to believe the words of a Galilean!

“Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live…” (John 11:25)

A body bag is not our ultimate destination! I know that some faith is required to believe the words of Jesus Christ, but it feels so right, and my soul burns within me with such hope. I choose to have faith. It’s a choice that each of us have. It’s a choice that can lead to hope in the eternal nature of man. Or the belief, that all we ever were,  or ever hope to be, gets zipped up in a bag and buried in the ground.

Life is not a cruel joke that has a tragic ending! I for one cannot deny the whispering of the spirit that comes to my heart telling me that,  through the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we will live again and that the body bag is full of life!