Jesus finished this dissertation on...
Illustration
Jesus finished this dissertation on marriage with the Sadducees (who generally did not believe in resurrection to begin with) saying that God "... is not a God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him." That evidently ended the conversation, and Jesus had avoided the trap of the questioners and had made a good statement of life.
Yet we humans ask such questions in more ordinary and often painful ways, as witnesses any mortician. A few years ago a number of books followed The American Way of Death which called into question much about our funeral practices. Such questions include where and how one's body is to be disposed of and the style and content of the funeral service, which is for the living most of all. When the deceased has put his/her desires about the funeral into writing, it is not uncommon that those desires do not help the surviving family and friends to celebrate the person's life, mourn his/her death, or carry out their grief -- funerals are meant to be for the living!
A vacationer strolled barefoot in early morning along a sandy beach. As he rounded a turn near a cove, he found many starfish washed up by the tide. They were dying, unable to get back to the water. He began gently to flip them like frisbees back into the tide. Thus the Great Catcher of starfish hurls us from our beach of death to life in the eternal sea.
Yet we humans ask such questions in more ordinary and often painful ways, as witnesses any mortician. A few years ago a number of books followed The American Way of Death which called into question much about our funeral practices. Such questions include where and how one's body is to be disposed of and the style and content of the funeral service, which is for the living most of all. When the deceased has put his/her desires about the funeral into writing, it is not uncommon that those desires do not help the surviving family and friends to celebrate the person's life, mourn his/her death, or carry out their grief -- funerals are meant to be for the living!
A vacationer strolled barefoot in early morning along a sandy beach. As he rounded a turn near a cove, he found many starfish washed up by the tide. They were dying, unable to get back to the water. He began gently to flip them like frisbees back into the tide. Thus the Great Catcher of starfish hurls us from our beach of death to life in the eternal sea.
