In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...
* This story is likely untrue, but a funny anecdote nonetheless It’s difficult sometimes to think we won’t live forever. A wealthy man who had made his fortune and spent many years in New York p...
Hebrews 2:15, Psalm 16:9–11, 1 Corinthians 15:51–57 , 1 John 11:1–44 , Daniel 12:2–3, 2 Kings 2:1–12
Ted Williams—often called the greatest hitter in Major League Baseball history—has spent the years since 2002 not in a hall of fame or resting beneath a headstone, but inside an unassuming warehouse n...
I love a British TV show called Time Team. Hosted by Tony Robinson, a team of archeologists descend on a site in Britain and excavate for three days. Inevitably, the archeologists unearth the dead...
John 5:39-40, Hebrews 4:12, 2 Peter 3:9, 1 Corinthians 1:27, Mark 9:14-29, Acts 17:27, Luke 8:9-14
The famous entertainer W. C. Fields, known for his humor, love of drink, and agnosticism, found himself bedridden in his final illness. When a longtime friend visited and noticed Fields reading the Bi...
Proverbs 27:2, Matthew 6:1-4, Ecclesiastes 1:14, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:14, Isaiah 14:12-15, Daniel 4:28-37, Luke 18:9-14, James 4:6, Obadiah 1:3-4
Abraham Lincoln’s sharp wit often surfaced, even in serious moments. At the funeral of a talented but overly vain Army General during the Civil War, Lincoln observed the large crowd that had gathered....
God of the Ages, Every day we come face to face with our mortality and the pain of this broken world Every day the need is great in body, mind, and spirit Every day brings disappointment Every day b...
The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year—the days when summer is changing into autumn—the crickets s...
Reflection It is striking that after Jesus’ death there are no close companions left to claim his body. All his public followers scattered. Only a secret follower, Joseph of Arimathea, accompanied by...
While lying in bed due to a serious illness, the poet and pastor John Donne heard over and over again the funeral bells at his church, which would ring to announce the death of someone in the parish. ...
Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. ...
"No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other animal knows, that we must die."
Luke 23:39-43, Romans 4:18-21, Luke 15:11-32, Lamentations 3:22-24, Romans 8:24-25
Hope is reliance upon grace in the face of death: the issue is that of receiving life as a gift, not as a reward and not as a punishment; hope is living constantly, patiently, expectantly, resiliently...