Matthew 5:4 KJVS
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
When man first fell to sin, he never knew the death he would endure. The day you taste of the fruit of the tree you shall die. Nor did he understand the bitter seperation he would taste from his fellow man. The sting of death can be felt from the cradle to our resting grave.
It is strikingly fast when it comes, how quickly it is to take. Painfully it becomes seeing those we love die both quickly and slowly at the same time. In our youth we bind ourselves to those we love. Our parents, our siblings, our friends, our spouses. Death to me seems not to simply be at the end of your life. Death begins with every sin we commit towards one another.
Not all sins are as big as others. They creep up to separate us, to slowly kill us until one day we are dead. Perhaps not physically but spiritually dead to each other. Mentally exhausted from our own desires we carry. Desires of what we believe we should be entitled to.
I have come to believe, since witnessing the pain of dying and the grief of those I love pained by death around me. Death is in itself a wake up call. A reminder. Not always are we blessed to say goodbye. When we do it is never enough. We then try to condense a lifetime of companionship into a small amount of time as not to inconvenience our lives. Yes life continues on. However I believe that we miss something… I believe that we miss the lessons that death teaches us.
We ask of God how he can allow us to suffer. Eventually moving on; pushing the question towards the back of our mind. Either quietly accepting that question is not answerable or bitter from it not being answered. Perhaps there are only two conclusions to such a question. Bitterness or grace. Bitterness of death, towards our creator…. Or acknowledgment of the grace that is being awakened to the knowing of what love is and awareness of the pain that death, physically or spiritually brings. Perhaps death is its own grace in our human condition; so that we can break free from the cycle of hurting one another while we live. The realization of a living dead life. Going through the motions. Separating ourselves further from each other day by day. Month by month. Year by year.
I further ask myself why must we be allowed suffering? Why must death be so painful. Perhaps we are such a hard headed creation that it takes great pain to awaken us from our slumbering trance that we pretend to call life. Could it be that Christ himself did not have to suffer such a vehement beating to pay for our sins? Could it be that he could have quickly been wrongly executed for our sins to atone for our sins? Forgone the beatings? The humiliation? The hanging on the cross? Perhaps Christ’s sacrifice would have not have held the same gravitas that it did. His own mother watching as he hung there forsaken as a theif or a murderer.
What do I propose to all of this? But that for all of the negative comments. For all of the lack of time for one another. The arguments. The pain of death while still alive. Perhaps freewill to love and death as a reminder of how much we can love each other is perhaps grace that God gives us. We are a hard headed creation with much propensity for love and hate towards one another. I believe that life is a gift to realize love, while death is gift to remember it. Sometimes death comes too quickly to find reconsolidation as it does for many. When death does announce itself I believe it is grace to atone with one another. When it does not come soon enough it is a reminder of cost of sin itself. Perhaps if it was beautiful and poetic we could fall quicker into sins seperation again worse than before.
The hardest part of forgiveness lies with in the heart of the living when the dead have given their forgiveness and have passed on. We are left with the decision to accept that forgiveness and sin no more among our brothers and sisters or continue in seperation until the day we pass from this life.
Matthew 6:12-13 ESV
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. [13] And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
The Path Less Traveled 