Many times over the years I have attended funerals when afterward someone would say to me something like, “I don’t know how people who aren’t Christians deal with things like death.” I totally agree with what they were saying. Death is such a difficult thing to deal with on many levels, and the thought of eternal uncertainty when someone you love dies leaves no light at the end of the tunnel. I would say though, that there is another relevant question, “I don’t know how people who aren’t Christians deal with life.” Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Wow! Christianity is not just a hope for the dying, and those left behind who will one day see them again, but a hope for daily living in this challenging, fallen world. As I’ve mentioned lately, Jesus said He was the Light of Life. Without Jesus, life is simply groping in the dark. Darkness, is scary and very confusing. When I gave my life to Christ many years ago, I was definitely living in darkness, mentally, and emotionally. I didn’t surrender my life to Jesus because I needed hope for when I died, I needed hope for living in the now. I needed to be delivered from the reality I was living in, which was hellacious, and offered a new reality where light reigned, not darkness. The older I get, the more excited I am becoming about leaving this life because I’m being lured by the beauty of the Lord. But it’s not because I’m miserable in this life; instead it’s because the reality realm of the presence and beauty of Jesus in experience now has made this life so abundant that I can only imagine what it’s going to be like then. We have been Born Again to living hope, not a dying one. When we do die, we will just continue, at a stunning leve, in the hope we’ve already been living in.
