And Creation Groaned

Today we will lay Brian's body to rest. 

Today we feel deep sadness at the thought that we who remain won't have the chance to hear his subtle wit, his humourous asides, his words of encouragement, again on this earth. We won't see his blue eyes sparkling. We won't feel his hand clasping ours reassuringly. We won't feel the immeasurable richness that his consistency and friendship gave us.

We will all miss our friend.

And in the empathy that weather can extend on occasion, yesterday afternoon it howled its anguish to the skies. The power went out for about half an hour and the wind rattled angrily in the chimney. The words from the book of Romans, chapter 8 and verses 22 and 23 came to my mind: "For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." It seemed that even Mother Nature didn't want to say goodbye ...

Some time later that evening I climbed the stairs from the TH to my home to get ready to go to the viewing yesterday evening. The wind had died down just before dinner and everything was still and calm again. I happened to glance out of the window; it seemed to me that now the sky was alight with joy:

And I thought of the verse that tells us how we who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ can bear times like this. The apostle Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Thessalonian church, chapter 4, that we do not sorrow as those who have no hope.

It put the words of the verse above, the words about creation groaning, into perspective. Creation is groaning, not as a grand finale with nothing to follow, but rather as a woman undergoing the agony of childbirth. There is the promise of life at the end of the pain.

Brian is already there. His pain is over. While we mourn for what we have lost, for the person we miss deeply, we rejoice for the abundant life he is enjoying again. His body, the one that of late had been confined to his wheelchair and dependant on the ministrations of Char and others, is free. 

And he is with God, which is far better.