Just a note to those of you who follow this blog that my co-contributor here on I2I, Roberto, had to say good-bye (for now) to his father Pasquale on the 7th of January. Pasquale turned 94 last week (meaning that he was born before the Titanic was built to put it in perspective).

We pondered the secrets of old-age that Pasquale knew and placed a few ideas on the table. One said it was because he was Italian (who are generally known for their longevity — I’ve never seen more 90 year-olds riding bicycles anywhere else). Another said it was because he was a Battistuzzi. Pasquale had a brother who recently passed away that was about the same age. Another attributed it to the good wine (Conegliano, where Pasquale was from, prides itself on being a city of the juice). Our Church family partially thinks it’s because of the great care that Adele and Roberto gave their dad. But the best reason came from an African nurse who said, “God wasn’t finished talking with him yet.”

As God has finished His pursuit of Pasquale, one point we should consider is  How does God also talk to us in the grand scheme of things? The Bible lays out many ways.1 One way the Hebrew worldview explores the Father’s lessons is through the funeral. Ecclesiastes 7:2 says,

It is better to go to the house of mourning
   than to go to the house of feasting,
for this is the end of all mankind,
   and the living will lay it to heart.

Here, Solomon lays out the simply profound point that it is better to seek meaning in your life more from a funeral than from a party. Everybody will be at a funeral someday. It’s the funeral of another (especially those close to us) that “talks” a language of God to those who are still alive. The deliberation over a life teaches us what qualities of wisdom that we should pursue and what foolishness of destruction we should avoid. The funeral aligns the living toward meaning. The funeral is the sound of the gate opening to eternity. That sound will help those who are prepared for eternity and haunt those who are not.

Can we ever prepare for the experience of death? Maybe not. But the confidence that we find in the Bible is that we can prepare for what comes after death (1 Corinthians 15:54-58). It’s a solved mystery! You will either experience death’s fury and total sting - or Yeshua’s victory of everlasting life. Consider funerals — they have something to say.

Battistuzzi Family death Hebrew Worldview Krause
  1. God speaks to His kids through creation, conviction, His Word, circumstances, godly people, destruction of the wicked, the rising and falling of kings and nations, the one-another community of Yeshua, the simple trust of a child etc. [back]

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