Death

Psalms 116:15, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.”

I've been thinking about death a lot lately. My brother in law passing at the untimely age of 50 is instrumental to those thoughts. Then my great uncle Pete passed away this morning (11/26/12) in a very brief battle with cancer.

I didn't know Pete well. In fact, I can’t even tell you how Pete even became short for Joseph Bartholow. But for years he has been a regular fixture at the family holiday gatherings. 

Pete was a staunch liberal. I imagine a card carrying democrat that certainly probably blended in much better in Chicago or the Eastern seaboard than in Houston, Texas. And in spite of our best efforts Pete never lost that Yankee twang. 

I can’t tell you what religion he was, if any at all. Though it is absolutely true that he discovered the Truth today. As we all will when we are face to face with God and His Son.

If I were the judge of Pete’s life, which I am not, I would find him to be a good soul. In fact, I have never seen or heard of any malice in his life. I can tell you that I did see his love of my uncle John and his daughter. He appeared tolerant of polar opposite political views. And so in that I could see and observe on  a limited basis there appeared to be no grotesque character flaw, while simultaneously observing acts of love I would say, that to me… Pete was in his way godly. And therefore his passing today was precious in the sight of the Lord.

Did Pete make heaven? I have no idea. For me, had a believed what Pete seemed to believe I personally would not have expected to make heaven. But for each of us God has to reveal Himself. And it is God who is responsible for our salvation. It is God through His Holy Spirit that is responsible for convicting us, and for shaping us. It is God that has to bring us to the cross. And it is God who hast to make Christ in us.

I don’t know Pete’s eternal fate. But since he never judged me in my overwhelming difference I choose not to judge him. I choose to hope the truth, if even in the final moment, set him free. I choose to believe that God’s love is so great that He made a way for Pete even though the way He has made for me looks completely different.

God’s will be done, and God bless Uncle Pete.

And then in murmuration to this I read this from my favorite Catholic Priest Henri Nouwen. He wrote,"Our mortal bodies, flesh and bones, will return to the earth.  As the writer of Ecclesiastes says:  'Everything goes to the same place, everything comes from  the dust, everything returns to the dust' (Ecclesiastes 3:20).  Still, all that we have lived in our bodies will be honored in the resurrection, when we receive new bodies from God.

What sorts of bodies will we have in the resurrection?  Paul sees our mortal bodies as the seeds for our resurrected bodies:   'What you sow must die before it is given new life; and what you sow is not the body that is to be, but only a bare grain, of wheat I dare say, or some other kind; it is God who gives it the sort of body that he has chosen for it, and for each kind of seed its own kind of body' (1 Corinthians 15:36-38).  We will be as unique in the resurrection as we are in our mortal bodies, because God, who loves each of us in our individuality, will give us bodies in which our most unique relationship with God will gloriously shine."