Death's Serenade

Tonight I stood in the very spot where a kid who once attended Youth Church at Hilltop was gunned down.  It was on an asphalt pathway that winds through a park where no children were at play, and mammoth eucalyptus trees cast vast shadows even on this cloudy, cold, windy late afternoon.  It was the one year anniversary of his death and was well attended by over 75 friends and family members.  Faces were brightly lit by candles as the sun's light, though hidden by the "scattered shower" rain clouds faded into the night, and the cries of a mother could be heard above the wind howling through the trees.

I had been called on to speak at the service.  "What do you say at a time like this?" I asked myself... It wasn't a funeral or graveside service.  It wasn't a formal setting with cozy chairs and a sound system.  God forbid I didn't have any control over the environment or a powerpoint on display to back me up.  I didn't even have an outline.  But what I did have was possibly one of the most teachable moments that pastors ever get: the shadow of immanent death, of which every person present has a date. 

With my heart broken over the sad, senseless death of another young person, I prayed with close relatives and chatted with cousins on the sidelines.  And as the crowd gathered, I opened with prayer and asked God to smile upon us from Heaven. Then I read from Hebrews 12 about Jesus enduring death because of the joy He had in knowing that he was going to a better place where he'll be united with everyone who calls Him Lord.


I tried to imagine Jesus standing there, using his surroundings to preach to the crowd: "These trees witnessed the whole thing, they were here long before any of us and they'll be here long after we're all gone.  Our lives are more like the candles you hold in front of you, alive and bright, but in a moment - a gust of wind or the wax running out, our lives will be snuffed out quickly. We have only a short time here, like a vapor."

And with the picture of the deceased right behind me, I picked it up and said that "right now, he knows that everything in this book (the Bible) is true... and if he could speak to us, I believe he would tell us: 1) 'Make it Count, - don't lay your life down for a government owned piece of property or for a gang of thugs on your block, but live it in the fullest potential of what God has created you for. 2) You must give up your right to get revenge and your right to feel hatred, and forgive those who are responsible for this murder. Without forgiving them, you will not be forgiven of your sins. 3) Do everything you can to get to Heaven. Strive to get there.  Nothing on earth matters as much as knowing God and making him Known. 


With a closing prayer, and my heart relieved of the angst of what to say after letting everything out that God had put there, I stepped back into the quiet circle of candles.  And waited.  After about ten minutes of silence, his mother came forward, having given up on the fighting-back of tears, thanked everyone for coming out.

As I walked away that night, I remembered that God has given us a ministry of reconciliation and that "ministry" comes in moments, not in the day-to-day activities of administration and programming.  And I had that overwhelming sense of my own mortality - that I too will breathe my last breath one day - the same sobering thought that I'm sure everyone present sensed that evening.  So with the fresh reminder that death has a date with all of us, and sings to us from beyond the grave, comes to us with swiftness and certainty, and has spared nobody since the beginning of time; it is all the more opportunity to re-affirm the relationship with the one who conquered death, hell and the grave.  And to be thankful that nobody really "dies" in this life, we just make the transition from mortality to immortality.