There is fresh cut stone and
unsettled dirt, the deep Georgia red clay my dad spent half his life trying to
get back to. And now it engulfs him. It is where his ashes lie, in a box,
covered up in darkness, several inches below the air and sunshine and the
creeks and hardwoods he so loved. It is in a sense poetic. Man came from dust
and to dust he will return, ashes to ashes.
Though he has been technically gone
for six months, there is a stifling finality to his death now. Thanksgiving was
definitely different this year. We had a different turkey carver and blessing sayer
(Thanks, Trav), but it will forever be the weekend we buried my dad.
A tiny plot of land and a
headstone mark the dirt and flowers, the place we will now go to “pay our
respects.” I am not even sure how to begin processing the fact that this
greatest of men, who held my heart in his hand since the day I was born, is
reduced physically to ashes in the ground.
He is again just a stone’s throw
from sisters Mary and Edna Fort, both retired school teachers, who lived across
the street. A decade ago, Mary, then in
her nineties, would call my dad frequently with this request, “Robert, I just
baked a homemade pecan pie. Meet you half way?” Dad would dart out the door and
meet her in the middle of the driveway they all but shared to retrieve the warm
pie and to visit with his friend. He in return brought the Fort sisters roses
from his garden nearly every week of the summer and made them laugh over a cold
Co-Cola.
He now shares the same piece of
earth as Sam Jones, who once stormed the beach at Normandy and as an
eighty-year-old former sheriff always sat with his back to the wall, just in
case. George Garrett is close by, a man
who watched the horror of Japanese planes flying over Pearl Harbor while bombs
rained from the sky. Needless to say, my dad is in fine company. His ashes are
in their temporary resting
place.
“For we believe that Jesus died and
rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have
fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are
still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not
precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself
will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the
archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise
first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up
together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be
with the Lord forever.” 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17
I have been thinking a lot about
this, when Jesus comes back, the “rapture”- when believers alive and dead will
be caught up with Christ in the clouds, and also the second coming- when Jesus
reigns over His kingdom and does battle with Satan once and for all. It is
something I have always believed and trusted in, but my lack of true
understanding over the details of it have kept me from really studying the
second coming of Christ.
If I were to tell you about Jesus, I
would certainly talk about His first coming, as a baby…His sinless life, His
death on the cross for the sins of the world. I would definitely talk about His
resurrection, and how He conquered death so that through trusting in Jesus (by
grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone), we have confident access to
knowing God and spending eternity with Him.
Ashamedly, I am not positive I would
mention arguably the most crucial event next to the doctrine of salvation,
Jesus’ second coming. The thing that all believers, alive and dead, the angels,
and all of creation continue to pine for is when Jesus Christ will return in
body to earth and right every wrong.
The story does not end with Jesus’
resurrection or His ascension. It doesn’t end when as believers we die and go
to live with God for eternity in heaven. That is a breathtaking part of the
story, but it is not the end.
Not surprisingly, the second coming
of Christ is mentioned around 240 times in the New Testament. But get this--
the Old Testament talks about the second coming of Jesus about twenty times more than it mentions Jesus’ first coming (The Second Coming of Christ, Dr. Don
Butler). This is astounding to me!
Before Jesus ever came to earth as a little
tiny baby (so sorry, but I can’t help but think Ricky Bobby here), the majority
of writings about Christ in the Old Testament look forward to His SECOND
coming, not his first. And yet, we rarely ever teach about the second coming of
Christ.
Dad, even though he is free from sin
and his mortal decaying body, still anticipates the Day when Jesus will return
to redeem all that was lost and broken by the fall….just like the believers who
are still alive. Even though Dad is with the Lord, there is something
unsettled, unfinished. He has the same longing now as he did while he
was alive.
The living and the dead in Christ
are united in the fact that we all look expectantly for Jesus’ second coming.
We collectively groan for the same thing: maybe today Jesus will come down to
redeem everything once and for all. That is a really sweet thought for me.
I remember when I was nine
years old we took a family trip to Washington, D.C. and one of our stops was to
the Arlington National Cemetery. Not surprisingly because my dad was a huge patriot. It was moving.
I remember driving through and seeing row upon heartbreaking row of tombstones. I looked out the window and watched each line pass my gaze. It reminded me of orange groves when we would drive to Georgia from Florida growing up. In one glance it looks chaotic and then as you move ever so slightly, the rows align perfectly.
I remember thinking even as a child in Arlington how unusual it was that the rows were not parallel with the road. It was as if the tombstones were looking off somewhere aloof and distant, unaware of the road in front of them. This is because the tombstones are not aligned with the road. They are aligned to face the east.
I remember driving through and seeing row upon heartbreaking row of tombstones. I looked out the window and watched each line pass my gaze. It reminded me of orange groves when we would drive to Georgia from Florida growing up. In one glance it looks chaotic and then as you move ever so slightly, the rows align perfectly.
I remember thinking even as a child in Arlington how unusual it was that the rows were not parallel with the road. It was as if the tombstones were looking off somewhere aloof and distant, unaware of the road in front of them. This is because the tombstones are not aligned with the road. They are aligned to face the east.
In the Arlington Cemetery, in the Hamilton Cemetery, and in
every other cemetery in the world, something extraordinary happens each
morning. The sun rises in the east.
I don’t mean this only in the
optimistic sense that it brings a new day or that times goes on and eventually
the raw wounds will give way to scars.
Listen to this…
Most headstones in the Western world face the
east. They face this way because Jesus is coming from the east when He returns
to redeem all that was lost.
Powerful!!
“For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Matthew 24:27
This beautiful tradition symbolizes
the great rumbling of anticipation, the undercurrent through all of history,
the unfinished business of the Risen Lord. The tradition of burying the dead to
face the east does not exist for the dead, so they will be raised looking the
right way or some nonsense like that. God can raise the dead from any direction
and any place and time in all of history he chooses.
Biblically speaking, “ashes” is not
coincidental when talking about the beginning and end of our physical life. God
made Adam from dust and to dust will man return. In the same way, “the east” is
not a coincidental phrase when talking about the fall and redemption of man—the
birth of sin and the death of sin.
Look at where God planted Eden.
Genesis 2:8 says, “Now the Lord
God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden;
and there he put the man he had formed.” The first
Adam, the beginning of mankind was formed in the east. The fall of man, the
original sin, happened there...just as the redemption of all mankind will come
from the east.
God saved His people from Pharaoh’s
army with help from where? The east.
Exodus 14:21, “Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and all that night the
Lord drove the sea back with a strong east
wind and turned it into dry land.”
Ezekiel saw God returning from the
east to dwell with His nation again. The glory of the Lord entered the temple
from the east gate. “Then the man brought me to the gate facing east, and
I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming
from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land
was radiant with his glory.” Ezekiel 43:1. After God passed through the east
gate of the temple, it was to remain shut. No one was allowed to walk through
it because the Lord Himself had passed through it. And the gate will remain
shut until the Lord returns and again enters it…from the east.
The second Adam, Jesus, comes from
the east. The three kings saw His star "in the east" (Matthew 2:2). “Who has stirred up one from the east, calling him in righteousness to his service? He
hands nations over to him and subdues kings before him. He turns them to dust with his sword, to
windblown chaff with his bow." Isaiah 41:2
Just as we came from dust and will
return to dust, so the fall of man in the east will be redeemed by Jesus when He comes from the east. God has great purpose and resolution
in every letter of His perfect Word.
I have never seen my dad wear any
piece of jewelry except his simple gold wedding band. To say he was not a
jewelry kind of guy would be a major understatement. He was a country boy, and
probably “the most informal person I have ever known,” in the words of his
friend Allen Levi.
After the death of Allen’s brother
and our dear friend, Gary Levi, my dad wore a bracelet each day in Gary’s
memory. It was a white glow in the dark rubber bracelet with the words “Perhaps
Today.” Gary Levi signed letters with those hopeful words. “Perhaps Today” is
the mantra of those who yearn for the return of the King. They wake each day looking for Him.
My bedroom window faces the east. Every
morning the sun comes pouring into my window, reminding me where to place my
hope. The sun has definitely set on me
these last six months, but even in the darkness of my room in the middle of the
night, I can make out the precious letters on my dad’s glow in
the dark bracelet “Perhaps Today.”
"For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night....But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake..." 1 Thessalonians. 5:2, 4-6
And after every night, sometimes to my amazement, the sun still
rises.
Every morning, its hope-giving rays
illumine the bronze letters “Robert Stanley Alston” in Hamilton, Georgia and
its same life-sustaining rays filter through my shutters to brighten the
darkness of my room and my heart in Tuscaloosa.
With every new sunrise, the Lord
reminds me of the impending consummation I crave, and He graciously restores in
me the expectant hope that, perhaps today, His Son will also rise up out of the
eastern sky. In other words, it's Friday for now...but Sunday's a comin'...
“He who testifies to these things
says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon.’ Amen, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord be
with God’s people. Amen.” Revelation 22:20-21
Come quickly.
1 Corinthians 15:50-54
!!!!!!!!“ I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the
imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all
sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be
raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” !!!!!!!!! WORD!!!!!!!
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