A solemn wake-up call

Yesterday, I attended a funeral wake of one of my church member. He died from heart-attack while battling cancer for a long time. His death, to me, was a rather abrupt and unexpected one. Although he had been battling cancer, a few months back, during one of the testimony-sharing sessions, he was vibrantly, joyfully sharing his story and fight against cancer. As he stood there to share, I couldn’t even tell that he was a cancer-stricken patient. He had so much life in him that he could even share a joke or two.

I realised how fast things could take a turn. A scary, unexpected, unbelievable turn.

I was once again reminded about the reality of death, that on one day, it would be my turn to lie in a coffin, motionless, still, cold, lifeless. My loved ones would be around me, sobbing and mourning at my lifeless corpse, taking reluctant glances of what’s left of my soon-to-decay body. The thing that makes funerals different from all the other ceremonies is that the person for which it is to cannot attend it. At birthday parties, the main person would be there. At weddings, the main person would be there. Only at funerals, the main person wouldn’t be there.

Job 1:21 - “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Genesis 3:19 - By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This is the frightening reality of death! The reality in which no man can ever escape!

This is the reality in which Jesus himself wept about when he saw his beloved friend Lazarus in the tomb. (John 11:35) People weep at funerals because of death, because death has taken and separated their loved ones from them.

But I do thank God that physical death is not the end.

John 11:25 - “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me shall live even if he dies.”

Even when physical death has taken us, we live because of Jesus Christ! Though we die, we live forevermore, without suffering, without pain, in the face of our living God.

The solemn wake-up call of death tells me that I should be living my life worthwhile. Not with the ‘by eating and drinking for tomorrow we die’ mentality, but by living every moment of life for God, by living life as God wants me to live, for death comes as he calls.