Darkness, Death, Aftershocks, Stroke, Jesus, Heaven, Saved, Hell, Christchurch, Funeral, Mum, Eternity, Light, Earthquake, Trusting in Christ, Matthew 13, New Zealand | report
Matthew 13:36-43 - WILL I SEE MY MUM IN HEAVEN? - Part 12
I watched the news in the last few weeks as a nation reels in the horror of the aftermath of an earthquake. The devastation of a category 6 earthquake brings everything to it's knees, buildings awkwardly buckle and crumble as if submitting to a warlord. Darkness falls like a smothering blanket over the city as the electricity grid fails. Debris falls, the dusty malformed tears of a city, the victim of a stroke. She looks contorted and twisted as she struggles in vain, convulsing with each aftershock, trying to stay alive but unable to move, her eyes wide and blinded in the dirt.
A woman is plucked from the wreckage of a collapsed building but nothing can save the twisted misshapen, struggling city from the crushing reality of over 160 deaths. Hell walks the darkened streets of Christchurch, New Zealand and faces are haunted with fear, shock and grief. Their eyes look for someone to tell them that this is not happening, but somehow they know that life will never be the same.
There was no warning. Sudden, unexpected. No-one can tell when death knocks menacingly at the door. She dies, not in the streets of Christchurch but a sea away, in Australia. There is no front page news of this devastating event. Only a lonely ad somewhere in the funeral notices of the local paper. My mum dies of a massive stroke (cerebral haemorrhage) in the early hours of the morning as Christchurch is still reeling from the aftershocks. As I hear this news I cannot believe that this has happened until my sisters and I go to view her body, and I see that she is not there. Just an empty shell. She has departed into eternity. We conduct her funeral a week later.
And all of us are left with unvoiced questions about eternity, questions we don't really want to think about but which linger in the shadows of the mind. WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY DIE?
Jesus speaks of HEAVEN as a place where "...the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's Kingdom" and HELL as "...the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 13:42-43 NLT).
IS MY MUM IN HEAVEN? If I am honest, I can't answer that question. I have to leave it in the hands of God. I trust Him to make the decisions of eternity. Did my mum come into a personal relationship with Christ as her Lord and Saviour? I know that I shared with her about how Jesus died for our sins on a number of occasions. Did she ever decide inwardly to trust in Christ? I know that she would pray at night, but was she saved out of the wreckage, plucked from the roof before her life collapsed, before all that was left was shock reverberating in the emptiness of our hearts?
The world didn't know it but it was experiencing an earthquake of unbelievable magnitude when Christ died. He was reaching out to save us from our precarious condition. When Jesus died on the cross for our sins there was an appropriate blackout that covered the earth which in the physical environment described what was happening spiritually as He was judged for my sin (Mark 15:33).
The only light that not only dispels the darkness but also causes no shadows is one that comes from within, an inner light. God is described as light and some would unkindly say of Christians that the lights are on but nobody's home, but that's cruel and patently untrue. No matter how odd Christians are, foolish to many, CHRIST DWELLS WITHIN. 1 John 1:5-7 (NLT) says "...God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin." John 8:12 (NLT) Jesus says "I am the light of the world. If you follow Me, you won't have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life." The invitation is right there.
When the Bible describes those who go to heaven, it says "we will be like Him (Christ), for we will see Him as He really is" (1 John 3:2 NLT). The only way Jesus can describe to me what heaven is like is to say "...the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father's Kingdom." (Matthew 13:43 NLT). Although I can't quite imagine shining like a celestial lightbulb, the contrast and choice is clear - DARKNESS, shell shocked and stubbornly unbelieving among the rubble of a collapsing world, or LIGHT; reaching out to a loving hand, and to salvation from the ruins of the devastating effects of my sin.
I choose LIGHT. Will I see my mum in heaven? Will I see you there?
Pastor Ross
