Death and Life, Endings and Beginnings

This has been a pretty hectic week.  In the last nine days, I've driven almost two thousand miles and have run the gambit from foreboding anxiety to deep sorrow to excitement to anticipation to hope for the future.  In other words, I have experienced life on this earth as we have come to know it.  Last Thursday, I traveled to Jefferson City, Missouri, to visit with Ron Fisher, our treasurer for the the last few years.  He was at the end of his journey. Ron suffered for the last year and a half with kidney failure and a myriad of other ailments caused by it.  He had lost weight until, at the end, he was no more than about 130 pounds.  That afternoon, I was able to speak with him and laugh and pray with him and though I knew it would be the last time I saw him on this side of the river, he assured me that he was ready to go home.  On Sunday we got the news that Ron had been promoted to glory and we prepared for the funeral in Jefferson City and the Memorial Service here at IBC. 
On Monday, Shelley and I attended BBC's Sports Awards Banquet and it really sank in that Bobby's collegiate career was over.  He was chosen as BBC's MVP for the second year in a row and we were very proud of our son's accomplishments.  But as his basketball career comes to an end, we are anticipating the beginning of his new life after college as he moves through the application process for a wonderful job that would involve teaching, coaching basketball, and ministry.
I also received news this week that Clint Kidd, one of IBC's teens has been accepted to Moody Bible Institute.  It has been Clint's dream to go to Bible college in a place where he could get a taste of the broad spectrum of real world problems that he may face in his future ministry.  Moody is located in the suburbs of Chicago and offers its students a wide range of ministry exposure to any number of cultures and social classes.  Clint's high school life in small town America is about to come to an end.  In just a few weeks, he will graduate from Grove High School and launch out into a new world of experiences and opportunities to serve God.  Even the ceremony that commemorates the end of his High School years acknowledges that in this ending there is a new beginning.  It is called a commencement, not a conclusion, a commencement.
All of this week's experiences display the conundrum that is life itself.  In every ending there is a new beginning.  For Ron, this week was not truly the end of life, it was only the beginning.  He is more alive today than he has ever been.  Our sorrow for the loss of a friend and loved one is only temporary.  The rejoicing in heaven for a child of God who has finally made it home will last for eternity.  So in reality, the end of the temporary has only opened the door for the beginning of the eternal.
 In Bobby and Clint's cases, the end of one phase of his life has opened the door for the next, more exciting, longer lasting, more fruitful phase which is about to begin.  The details are uncertain, but in faith we know that God will lead and provide.  It's really not that much different.  When I spoke with Ron on Thursday, he knew that he was about to "graduate."  While the transition process was a little scary, he knew that God had already prepared a place for him on the other side.  And so it is with every ending here on earth.  In the ending we find a new beginning.
Tomorrow, we celebrate the reason for our confidence in this hope.  At Calvary, what looked like a tragic ending, an earth-shattering defeat, was transformed on resurrection morning into the consummate victory over man's greatest enemies, death and the grave.  And in that gory ending we find that eternal life has its true beginning.  The one source of joy, peace, and comfort that can be found in Ron's passing is that because Jesus rose again, we too have hope for a day of resurrection.  Tomorrow, we will not be celebrating  bunnies, Easter eggs, and the return of Spring.  We will be remembering the sacrifice of the cross and the victory of the empty tomb.  "He is not here.  He is risen , as He said..."