Will you accept the gift without the wrapping paper?

Psalm 23: 4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death – I will fear no evil – for though art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

I was at the cemetery, I was looking for my grandmother’s grave stone, me and my family. We walked through the valley of death, from the year 2000 to 1989, - 12 years of death, grief, sadness, tears, unfulfilled hopes, dreams, purposes, I saw just this- and it gave me pause, a beautifully wrapped bouquet of flowers, most likely left by a visitor of graves, just like myself. 

Thing is – the flowers were still perfectly nestled in the beautiful wrapping paper but the flowers- well- they were all rotten- brown- and moldy. It was sad. Goodbyes, are indeed, the saddest words we ever hear.

I thought- death- looks exactly like that bouquet and many of us do too. Beautifully wrapped packages with rotten insides.

And it's Christmas, and no one wants to really talk about death, when we are celebrating Christ's birth; what a morbid subject at the most wonderful time of the year but oh how because of a birth- death no longer has to look like a beautifully wrapped bouquet of rotten flowers.

Death now equals life.

I was at the graveyard because I was attending a funeral, and as I looked around at all the people crying, I considered that people cry at funerals for so many different reasons; many out of guilt and regret. This day, thankfully, I had neither. I just cried because death is sad.

It's that I will never see you again..

I will never talk to you again..

I will never touch you again...

I will never hear your voice again...

It's that natural, tangible experience that we crave and will forever miss...

Death...is that..why didn't you come before...Lazarus has died...it's too late...it's been days!

But... unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and death took on a whole new face......

1 Cor. 15:55 O Death...where is thy sting? O Grave...where is thy victory?

I imagine death now looks like a perfectly perfect party scene, complete with red Bistro table- the centerpiece- the masterpiece- the blood of Jesus's peace. A place where there is a table set before you, and you are feted until...

......you meet the ones you have left behind; who walk through their own valleys of death, mourning; not knowing, not owning, the best open secret the Good News has offered. 

Eternal life. Life after death. Hope. Grace. Freedom. Victory!

I miss my grandma...still...and she died in 1989, and as I stood over her gravestone; life standing looking down at death, I still cried, just a little. Death..is something the living will never get over. So, the living must live like they want to live forever. We must live in Christ.

....but most importantly, we must die in Christ and leave our graveyards behind; for Christ has come to give life, and life more abundantly, not to have us wading through the desperation of this life.

Readings: Isaiah 9

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