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| First Week of Advent |
"I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
That is a sure and certain hope!
Before my grandmother died, she had a short time of conversation with us. She was 93, dying of cancer, and we had all made peace with it as she laid unconscious in a hospital bed. But, for a brief moment, she spoke to us from a kind of semi-lucid state that seemed almost crystal clear. Emerging from her fog of morphine induced dementia, she looked up at those of us who were gathered there and began to ask us things...the kinds of things a mother asks her kids before they leave her for an extended period of time. "Do you have all that you need?" "Are you happy?" "Do you know the way?" As strange as this moment was to us, we quickly responded, "Yes" to her questions, reassuring her that we were going to be alright. This seemed to satisfy her and she drifted back into her unconscious private world. She died a couple days later.
She was not asking us if our lives were full of parties. She wasn't asking if our lives were without difficulties or challenges. She wanted to be sure, before she went to be with Jesus, that our lives were heading in the right direction...the same direction she was heading. Before she left this life, she wanted to be sure that we would meet up again in heaven. Looking back, it was with the same sure and certain hope we find in Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi that we were able to say "yes" to her that day.
We buried my grandmother next to my grandfather. We commended both of them to Almighty God with a sure and certain hope!
Before my grandmother died, she had a short time of conversation with us. She was 93, dying of cancer, and we had all made peace with it as she laid unconscious in a hospital bed. But, for a brief moment, she spoke to us from a kind of semi-lucid state that seemed almost crystal clear. Emerging from her fog of morphine induced dementia, she looked up at those of us who were gathered there and began to ask us things...the kinds of things a mother asks her kids before they leave her for an extended period of time. "Do you have all that you need?" "Are you happy?" "Do you know the way?" As strange as this moment was to us, we quickly responded, "Yes" to her questions, reassuring her that we were going to be alright. This seemed to satisfy her and she drifted back into her unconscious private world. She died a couple days later.
She was not asking us if our lives were full of parties. She wasn't asking if our lives were without difficulties or challenges. She wanted to be sure, before she went to be with Jesus, that our lives were heading in the right direction...the same direction she was heading. Before she left this life, she wanted to be sure that we would meet up again in heaven. Looking back, it was with the same sure and certain hope we find in Paul's letter to his friends in Philippi that we were able to say "yes" to her that day.
We buried my grandmother next to my grandfather. We commended both of them to Almighty God with a sure and certain hope!
Thank you, Lord, for the sure and certain hope you give to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
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