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B Burial
Fulfilling a friend's request that he scatter her husband's ashes from a small airplane, Robert Fulghum (now a writer; then a minister) dutifully carried the ashes aloft and tossed them out the open door of the little plane—only to have the wind send the ashes right back in the door, filling the cockpit with "the final dust of Harry, the deceased husband. Covering the widow, the pilot, and me."
"We flew back to the field in silence. I can now add a practical paragraph to the Minister's Manual: 'If the ashes of the deceased are blown back into the cockpit, return to the airport and borrow a vacuum cleaner from the airport janitor and vacuum the deceased from the plane.'"
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Such humorous observations in the face of death are made possible thanks to the sure knowledge that death is not the end, nor are the physical remains of a deceased loved one truly what constitutes his or her eternal personhood. Thanks to the work of Christ, death is but a passing into a more perfect existence.
Source: Robert Fulghum, Uh-Oh, Villard 1991, p. 184.
In a letter written about A.D. 125, a Greek named Aristeides marveled at the radical new attitude toward death possessed by the Christians:
"If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby."
Christ has made possible a new attitude toward death, investing its darkness and uncertainty with a peacefulness and glory.
Source: Illustrations of Bible Truths, 1995, p. 53.
Topics/Tags: Death; Eternal life; Burial
Browse By Topic B Burial