Jesus is Enough

I didn’t want to go to my Grandmom’s funeral.  I know that sounds terrible.  I tried to tell myself my reluctance was for a million different reasons… I had already said my goodbyes to her, I didn’t want my last memory to be of her in a casket, the weather forecast indicated that we might be stuck in an airport overnight.  I had a million different excuses, but on the way to the Charlotte airport on Wednesday, I realized that all my reasons boiled down to one: I didn’t want to have to confront the fact that she was gone.  You see, we live far apart.  I talk to my Grandmom some on the phone and a fair amount on Facebook, but I rarely see her.  I think I could have lived in denial of her actual passing for a while. 

 

Her health had been declining in the last year or so, but I wasn’t actually prepared to lose her so quickly.  Just a month ago, she had sent me funny items in the mail that caused us to laugh together and showed her fun loving personality.  This past week, I got a Christmas card with her handwriting, and I had on my to-do list to write her a thank you note.  We had made plans to drive to New Jersey next summer after Daniel was born so she could meet him.  I wanted to live in the world where all those memories were happy and those plans were going to happen.  Her funeral would make me face the fact that our time of making memories together was over.

 

But as with all hard experiences, I’m so glad my Grandmom’s funeral was one I had.  First because it surrounded me with people who loved her as much as I did, and who loved one another deeply.  As mentioned in the previous blog, my mom’s family is fairly large, and few of us live close to one another.  However, all the children and almost all the grandchildren made it to the funeral.  Through it all, I was overwhelmed by the love and support this family gives one another.  We could not be more different, and many of us barely know each other as none of the cousins truly grew up together. Nevertheless, I wish I could describe what it was like to walk into my cousin Chris’s arms and feel like I was with a big brother or choke back tears to have a normal conversation with my cousin Nicole because it has been so long since we’ve seen each other and we wanted to catch up or be greeted with my Uncle Mike’s big smile or talk pregnancy details with my Aunt Arleen.  I wish I could describe my Uncle Jimmy’s absolutely perfect eulogy – which wonderfully captured my Grandmom and our family and reminded me how much I want to be like her to my children one day.  My grandmother raised a family who loves so well.  Children who accept differences (of which there are many) and put family first above all.  Children who have taught their children to do the same.  It is an amazing family, and I am privileged and blessed to be a member of it.

 

The second reason I’m so glad I went to my Grandmom’s funeral is because I heard the gospel clearly and beautifully.  My grandmother had picked the three scripture readings for the day.  At first, the scriptures didn’t seem closely related to me.  One discussed wisdom, one was Jesus’ words to his disciples that he was the only way to heaven, and the last, from Revelation, discussed the end times and God making all things new when he comes again.  The priest pulled them together perfectly – probably as my grandmother intended all along.  The priest clearly described how my grandmother’s life was not the end.  He discussed how some people have the wisdom to look beyond what they can see on earth to know that there is another, better way and to know that Jesus is the way to that life – a life that is described in Revelation as being a new thing marked with no more tears and no more sorrow, a life of joy and togetherness with God.

 

I sat in that service with tears on my cheeks telling God how much I hurt.  I told him that I knew death was a natural part of life, but that I was aching for my grandmother to be alive in the room with us.  I felt the Lord quickly respond, “No, Shannon.  Listen up.  Death is not a natural part of life.  It is unnatural.  It shouldn’t be this way.  You are sad because you know it shouldn’t be this way.”  The words God whispered to my heart lined up so perfectly with the priest’s message.  Death is sad because it isn’t right.  We were never designed to die.  When God created the Garden of Eden, his intention was that Adam and Eve would live forever with him, but through their sin, they chose a life of disobedience and separation from God – a life that God merciful capped to end the suffering they brought on themselves.  He could have left the human race there – living forever this cycle of life and death because of our disobedience, but he didn’t.  The Bible is a love story of him chasing his wayward children to bring them back to the life he wanted to give them in the first place.  But, as the priest said, few of us have the wisdom to see God’s loving chase.  Somehow, too many people see the Christian life as a list of things that one must do or not do in order to hopefully be accepted by God.  It is a misconception that has made a life with Christ seem rigid and hard and trivial.  It is a viewpoint that has distracted me at times.  And, if I’m being completely honest, the question of how much do I have to do or not do for my faith to be “good enough” has hounded me lately.  Even this past week, I had found myself asking Andy, “I know God says if you confess with your mouth ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved for a life in heaven, but what do you think that means?  What does that even look like?  How do we know a confession is enough and how much can we get wrong and the confession still be all it takes?”

 

I find it beautifully ironic that God used a Catholic priest to make it clear and simple and easy for everyone present.  Catholics are pegged for their “follow the rule” nature and for their observance of rituals, but yesterday, in that unexpected place and time, God connected the dots.  What does it take to spend the life we were designed to have with God and his people forever?  It takes the wisdom to see that Jesus is the ONLY way, the only truth, and that he brings the life promised to us when God creates a new heaven and a new earth.  It takes the wisdom to look beyond the distractions and know that no one else and no other god will do. 

 

In our fast paced, anything goes, independent society, it is easy to become distracted.  It is easy to want to explore our options or believe that we are our own bosses and can make our own rules.  It is also easy to get caught up in religious tradition or rules and lose sight that the gospel of God is simple.  We are a race of humans who have rejected the perfect plan of creation, and the gospel is the truth of a God too loving to leave us in our pain and suffering, it is a Lord who made himself human to die the death we should die because we chose it in the Garden.  The gospel declares that our own deaths don’t mean separation forever from God or from our believing loved ones.  The gospel is the message of hope.  It is the message that we are not good enough, we have no hope of being good enough, and all our trying is useless.  God doesn’t ask us to clean up or work hard or get it right to be rewarded.  He just asks us to come and believe that his way is the only way.  It is simple.  For those who believe, death is not the end, we will not live forever in pain and hurt, there is hope.

 

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”  Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” – Revelation 21:3-5