Random Thoughts on the Really Good News

“…those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint…It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Isaiah 40:31; Galatians 5:1) Until last Saturday, I had not had to deal with the death of a sibling. Now I have…my oldest brother Dee has been set free. Pondering our relationship over the years there are some regrets for not spending more time with him, but I keep coming back to the last conversation we had on the phone the day before. We planned on spending the next day together and the last words exchanged between us was just what he knew I needed to hear and what he wanted to hear back from me… Dee: “See you tomorrow, love you” Me: “Look forward to it, love you too big brother” Regrets are real, but love covers a multitude of sins.  Dee and I will still see each other tomorrow, that w...

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:10-11) Some have made this verse something to be attained in this life. But to me it is just a simple statement of our “hope” for the next. Like Paul “I want to know Christ…” – I will really know Jesus only when I meet him face to face in... “…the power of his resurrection…” – Just as Jesus experienced the power of the resurrection, so too I am to be resurrected, and will see Jesus face to face having experienced... “…the participation in his sufferings…” – This participation of his sufferings occurs when I die and have become... “…like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” Only then, after my death and resurrection, will I really “know him” . As for the present, well... “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we sh...

I have a friend who asked if cremation was biblical. There is no law in the bible on how we must dispose of a dead body.   However, a dead body is clearly something that was to be quickly dealt with. Even touching it made the Jew unclean…obviously for sanitary reasons. Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians have argued about cremation for centuries…that is what they are paid to do.  But if one would just use common sense we would all reach the same conclusion. It is OK with God. Early in Genesis, when the dying process was pronounced upon mankind, God said… “ By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19) God does not care how that is accomplished, in my opinion, but eventually the body must “return” to dust. And that is where common sense comes in, which sometimes is the opposite of religious teaching and ritual.  What is th...