Bird

The Greek philosophers were the ones who talked most about the immortality of the soul, and they used a beautiful analogy to explain it. They saw the soul like a homing pigeon taking to a far land and when it is release, it always instinctively and unerringly returns to its true home.

The soul they say is like that bird. In this life, we’re living in a foreign land or in a cage, death, therefore, in this view is a release – freeing the soul to return instinctively and unerringly to its true home.

Now that’s beautiful, but it’s not Christian. It’s in much of our poetry and in much of our hymnody, you get some hints of it in the Bible, but that’s not primarily the teaching of the Bible.

The primary teaching of scripture is not the immortality of the soul, but the resurrection of the body and eternal life. The Bible does not affirm that immortality is part and parcel of what it means to be human, but the Bible rather talks about eternal life as gifts – the gift of God in Jesus Christ to those who respond in faith to him.

If you’re going to live beyond death, the Bible says, there must be a resurrection of the body. A resurrection of who we are as we are as persons, yet made new by Christ himself, who even now sitting upon the throne, keeps saying, behold I am making all things new.

When Paul was confronted with what people felt to be the preposterousness of this idea of the resurrection of the body, when you consider what happens to the body in death – he said, we will have a resurrected new body.

And just as the Greeks had an analogy to talk about the immortality of the soul, so Paul had an analogy to talk about the resurrection of the body. He said it’s like a farmer, planting a seed in the ground, and the shell of the husk falls away and new life appears. So we die, to be born again into new life.

Maxie Dunnam, All This and Heaven, Too, www.Sermons.com

Tears are our first words.

The beginning way we have of communicating is through tears. Is there anything that gets a baby more attention than tears? Is there anything that can command complete, immediate devotion more than a torrent of tears? Is there anything that can makes adults feel more dismal, daunted, desperate than the wailing of an infant?

Our baby’s tears can bring us to tears as well.

In earlier cultures the tears of mourners were gathered into something called a lachrymatory, or “tear-catcher,” a specially created container for human tears of grief or sometimes of joy. In fact, a company is now bringing them back and selling them online. Here is the website with great images of what some of the early ones looked like:

http://www.tearcatcher.com/tearbottle.html

Mourning tears were believed to have extreme powers—-of solace, of sustenance, of spiritual healing. There were beautiful, delicate lachrymatory tear bottles for women and more masculine cigar-shaped tear bottles for men. Traditionally all were designed with an evaporation chamber. When the last of the gathered tears finally evaporated, the official mourning period was over.

In Roman times women were paid to cry into tear bottles, so that as many filled bottles as possible could accompany the extensive mourning processions that befitted any important, powerful figure. In typical Roman fashion, more was always better—-whether one was dead or alive.

Even the most humble burial ceremony involved the presence of paid mourners. In Jewish culture the bare minimum required two flute players and professional wailing woman. Anything less was an insult to the family name. The grief industry in the first century—-like that of the twenty-first century—-was big business.

Have you noticed that as the economy has fallen, the number of ads for life insurance are on the rise? In the face of an uncertain economic climate, unstable global relationships, catastrophic environmental scenarios, and butt-headed political stalemates, there is always one thing that remains certain . . . death. You can always bank on death showing up. The grief industry never has a down turn.

When Jesus finally arrived at Bethany the first-century grief industry was already well represented. “The Jews” who came down from Jerusalem to “console Martha and Mary” (v.19) undoubtedly included many professional mourners, musicians, and trained tear-producers…

James 1:9-11

One thing that's inevitable.
One thing that will come to all.
One thing that everyone will experience.
One thing that has no escape.
DEATH!

Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away. For no sooner has the sun risen with a burning heat than it withers the grass; its flower falls, and its beautiful appearance perishes. So the rich man also will fade away in his pursuits. James 1:9-11

whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. James 4:14

Life is like a flower that perish away. Life is like a vapour that appears for little while and then vanishes away. No one knows how long he or she can live for. No one knows when we'll pass away.

Yet, when you do pass away, what legacy are you leaving behind? What do people remember you for? What have you done with your life? What have you done with Jesus?

It is possible to live under a delusion. You think you are kind, considerate and gracious when you are really not. You think you are building positive stuff into your children when in reality, if you could check with them twenty years later, you really didn't. What if you could read your own obituary? How do people really see you? Here is the story of a man who did.

One morning in 1888 Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, awoke to read his own obituary. The obituary was printed as a result of a simple journalistic error. You see, it was Alfred's brother that had died and the reporter carelessly reported the death of the wrong brother. Any man would be disturbed under the circumstances, but to Alfred the shock was overwhelming because he saw himself as the world saw him.

The "Dynamite King," the great industrialist who had made an immense fortune from explosives. This, as far as the general public was concerned, was the entire purpose of Alfred's life. None of his true intentions to break down the barriers that separated men and ideas for peace were recognized or given serious consideration. He was simply a merchant of death. And for that alone he would be remembered.

As he read the obituary with horror, he resolved to make clear to the world the true meaning and purpose of his life. This could be done through the final disposition of his fortune. His last will and testament--an endowment of five annual prizes for outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace (the sixth category of economics was added later)--would be the expression of his life's ideals and ultimately would be why we would remember him.

The result was the most valuable of prizes given to those who had done the most for the cause of world peace. It is called today, the "Nobel Peace Prize."

For Alfred Nobel, he left a legacy of being the founder of the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, what legacy are you leaving behind?

Christians, what are you doing for God on this earth? What have you done for Him? Have you been serving Him and giving your time, effort, energy, resources for His work and glory? Have you been living a life that's pleasing to His sight? Have you been living each day in anticipation of His second coming?

Non-Christians, where are you headed for after you die? Heaven or hell? What have you done with Jesus today? Have you rejected Him and think that you can do it by yourself? Have you thought that you can make it to heaven in your own strength and merits? What have you done with the free gift of salvation that God has given you?

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Today, if you will hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. Hebrews 3:15

Open you hearts to receive Jesus today.

Death is real, what preparation have you made yet?