“God of the broken.”

M,

There is never an easy fix to our broken state. The older I get the more I make peace with the idea that it will take a lifetime to fix what ails me. Perhaps, that is what this life is: a hospital to get well before we step into that eternal stream.

This is not an efficient way to look at it. At least from our vantage point. We look to God as more of a quick fix than a real fix. We follow Him more as a problem solver than a constant companion. It will be hard to imagine God as someone who sits and holds your hand while the disease of this mortal coil winds down and grants you a place in an unseen Valhalla. Death is a morbid topic. Life is the constant zing. We know which one we prefer.

Yet the Holy Writ offers us some real insight into the new view of death. “Oh death where is thy sting?” is our common refrain at funerals and as consolation. It is funny that we say that when the sting is clear at that point. The sting is to those left behind on earth struggling with our own mortality. The “casualties” are those who live with the memories of their dearly departed. The dead are already “well out of it”. 

We see only in part and the part of death we see is not pleasant.  The coil seems truly broken and all possible futures end. I should not be so morbid but I am trying to say that the timetable should be one of hope and expectation not of dread.

The final cure for all the things that are broken in us is to shed our mortality for immortality. Now before I sound like a cult leader advocating for mass suicide, let me clarify. Eternity starts in the heart. It is not to die or to even want to die. It is to see life from an everlasting perspective. It is to live with the idea that everything matters only in the light of values that never change and acts that have only that value to them. The healing to our brokenness is in this great idea. It is not bound by time. There is no hurry. We should be at rest. Let God complete His full work in all of us. No eye can see this work in all its glory. We will see flashes, evidence or stirrings. The trajectory of a human life on earth will not contain all the glory of God. It is just a start.

The final stage of the evolution of the human spirit may well be free of the human body.

So death, where is thy sting?