The Stakes are High

Our church currently worships in a funeral home chapel on the Lord’s Day since we are awaiting the building of our own new facilities. Yes, it seems odd to many people, but on the other hand, it has brought some interesting reminders that are jarring. The first Sunday we met there a couple years ago was also the first Sunday of the month, and thus time for us to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in worship. The table we use for the sacrament was set up right in front of the pulpit – right where the casket normally sits during a funeral service. I knew everyone in the congregation, already feeling disconcerted with being there the first time, also recognized this situation. So rather than ignore the elephant in the room, I purposely mentioned the joyous contrast of Christ’s sacrifice which brings life to those heading otherwise for eternal death. It was a powerful moment for me if for no one else.

This past Lord’s Day was also interesting – October 31, both Halloween on the secular calendar and Reformation Sunday for the church. It also happened that I had come in my series on Galatians to chapter 3:10-14, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith’…(ESV).” To discuss our deliverance from the curse of sin on a day in which the world almost revels in evil was a tremendous privilege. The other aspect of the day though was probably unknown to most of those there. Two people were in closed off rooms of the funeral home waiting their funeral service. One was a teenage girl who had overdosed on drugs. Another was a man in his early 20s who had committed suicide. When I heard about those two sad individuals, it was like a sucker punch to the stomach. It’s not just that our own daughters are of the same age range as they were. Death coming to the young is always a tragedy, but when it is avoidable as both of these were, it is even more horrible.

We in the church often become more and more insulated and removed from the wickedness of the world over time. Part of this is a natural result of our sanctification, as we grow to develop more ties to our brethren and spend time with them. But as I thought of those two individuals, the words from Matthew 9 came to mind, “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.’(ESV)” Have we lost sight of how desperate the situation is for the lost in our world? Are we so insulated in our habits and associations that we’ve removed ourselves from the mess and chaos of sin? Please understand, I ask these questions first of myself; I have no pious delusions of doing any better in this than any of my brethren, and probably count myself as doing worse than most. When we read of these things in a sanitized news report, it is comfortably distant. When the results of sin’s assault on humanity lie on the other side of the wall from where you worship, it’s a little harder to ignore. May the Lord remind us of what is at stake as we go through the week, for when death closes the door on sinners without Christ, it is closed forever.