Warning signs

I was warned. Me and a few hundred others who had gathered for a funeral. Me and a few hundred others who sat, silently, grimly, in a cavernous and spare sanctuary while a stern man in a black suit stood in an elevated pulpit and admonished us with grave fingers wagging. I was warned that death was coming for me and unless I renounced the ways of the devil and repented of my worldly pride and attachments, that my fate would be a fiery and tortuous one. I was told that there was nothing good in me and that I could never stand before the righteous judge of the earth. I was told that God has his elect and we must never question God’s ways. I was warned to keep watch for the temptations of Satan because Satan likes to provoke criticisms and doubts during times of death.

And for a moment—just a tiny moment—it was exhilarating. I felt like I was at a revivalist tent meeting from the 19th century where itinerant preachers rode around scaring the hell out of people. It felt confrontational and urgent, like there was something vitally important that hung on my response. It felt like death was an existential crisis that demanded something from me—that I was invested in a cosmic struggle with my very soul hanging in the balance. It felt like the preacher’s eyes were going to bore a hole right through me! Say what you will about preachers and theology like this, at the very least they pay human beings the ironic (and probably unintended) compliment of occupying a rather exalted place in the divine economy.

But the moment passed. Rather quickly, as it turned out. There’s only so much scolding in God’s name that I can take. Especially at a funeral. Eventually, I want to hear about the Jesus who wept at Lazarus’s tomb, who somehow prayed for mercy for the very sinners who were snuffing out his life. I want to hear about how death is a defeated enemy, about how God is close to those with tear-stained eyes. I want to hear about the Man of Sorrows well-acquainted with suffering, about the Good Shepherd who knows his sheep by name and who walks with them even through death’s dark valleys. Eventually, I want to hear something like, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.