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FIXING A FUNERAL

The outspoken liberal Newsweek columnist Anna Quindlen did a back-page article in September 2002 where she describes a bad day she’d once endured with her daughter. The morning started with a funeral of a beloved neighbor. After that a quick drive to a hospital where an even closer friend had just gone through tough surgery. But it turned out to be a trifecta day of tears when their cat was poisoned that afternoon and had to be rushed to the vet.

Wow. So that night as Anna tucked her child in bed, she gently encouraged her. “Don’t worry, honey,” she consoled. “We’ll never again have a day as bad as this one.” Well, that was September TEN, 2001. We all know what happened the very next day . . . and this is a family living in New York City. Anna goes on to describe 9/11 as “the day America’s mind reeled, its spine stiffened and its heart broke.”

And ever since that tragic morning, people have discussed ways of “fixing” the problem. The Pentagon was soon repaired. Walls were rebuilt; cubicles restored; lost equipment replaced. New workers came in to try to take the places of those who perished. But as you’re hearing these words, many months later now, conflicting views tug at the hearts and architectural design tables of those trying to decide what to do about Ground Zero and that painful gap in the New York skyline. Should the Twin Towers be rebuilt exactly as they were, to show the world we cannot be defeated? Just as we began preparing and studying for this new radio series, architect Daniel Libeskind was awarded the privilege and challenge of designing the new structures which will memorialize the fallen heroes of September 11. But nothing in the new 70-story buildings, or in the 1,776-foot spire, or in the quiet, wedge-shaped tribute parks can come close to “fixing” the void in our nation’s soul, the scars in so many hundreds of American families. Mr. Libeskind is planning to spend close to $800 million to right this great wrong . . . but there aren’t enough dollars in the world to bring back one lost child.

Well, friend, what does it all mean as we continue to study the Bible doctrine of the Second Coming of Jesus? Simply this: if you and I want to truly talk about “fixing,” about making something the way it was before, it’s not going to be done by good architects or by Congress opening up its purse strings. It can only be done by Jesus Christ coming back to earth and making all things new. I believe that with all my heart.

There’s an extended promise in the Old Testament book of Isaiah which I’m convinced applies to right now and the imminent return of Jesus. Here it is, from chapter 65:

“Behold, I will create NEW heavens and a NEW earth,” God promises. “The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.” And for all relatives of victims on 9/11, please listen to this: “I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in My people; THE SOUND OF WEEPING AND OF CRYING will be heard in it no more.”

And all through the Bible, Old Testament and New, the evidence is clear and compelling – if we choose to believe it – that Jesus Christ is fully capable of absolutely FIXING every mess in this world. The physical scars, both to places and to people. The bomb craters of broken homes and lost children. The devastation of divorces and of terrorism and of spiritual conflict. The gentle, powerful, nail-scarred hands of Jesus will simply pick up this planet and bathe it in newness, in restoration.

Yesterday we dipped into a fantastic little resource from our basement, so to speak. It’s a compilation of old sermons by “The Chief,” Pastor H. M. S. Richards, the founder of this radio ministry clear back in 1929. And in the chapter on the Second Coming, Pastor Richards answers a most important question with just one sentence:

“Why is our Lord coming again? – To do many things that He alone can do.”

I have no doubt that the architects in New York City will do well. But there’s only so much they can do. I’m sure President Bush meant it with all his heart when, three days after the attacks, he stood next to Billy Graham in Washington’s National Cathedral, and said:

“Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.”

But he’s not going to be able to do that, or the President that comes after him. Or all the preachers in churches and here on the radio. Only Jesus can rid the world of evil once and for all. He’s the only Warrior who can get rid of both the land mines out in the deserts and war theaters and also the land mines of dishonesty, murder, adultery, selfishness that exist in our churches, our families, and within each one of us.

But there’s something more. Because I suppose it’s true: if the government were to allot enough money, they could completely duplicate the Twin Towers. If your home was destroyed, they could fund its replacement, right down to the last tile and the CDs and paintings. But what about the men and women who were lost? What about all of the kids on those four planes? We get a bit of criticism for mentioning Todd Beamer, Todd Beamer, Todd Beamer in our sermons and on the radio. So today let’s ask: All right, what about EVERYONE lost on Flight #93? Those who made headlines and those who, completely unheralded, with valor known but to God, helped to bring that plane down to its heroic finale of martyrdom, many miles away from our nation’s capital? What about them? How can Jesus make that right?

Well, let’s stay right here in Isaiah and read the sure Word of the Lord, shall we? If the Second Coming is true, then these accompanying promises are valid as well. Here’s Isaiah 26:19:

“But your dead WILL LIVE,” the prophet of God guarantees. “Their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout.” The new Message paraphrase adds: “But friends, your dead will live, your corpses will get to their feet.”

Maybe we wonder about this, because you might have had a loved one up there on the 95th floor, and when the planes of death came hurtling through the structure, that child of God was just gone. Vaporized. There was nothing left to rebuild with, no body, no traces, no DNA, no anything. It was heartbreaking to read how, on that terrible Tuesday morning, firemen and women, truly “New York’s finest,” wrote their names and addresses and Social Security numbers in indelible ink on their arms before going into the buildings. After the blast, workers amid the rubble did the same . . . just in case someone later would need to trace a body part and inform the next of kin. And we wonder: if this beloved friend or spouse is just completely GONE, what will Jesus do? I can tell you what He’ll do: He’ll make all things new. DNA is not a problem for Jesus. He didn’t make Adam out of DNA, and He can perfectly restore the person you lost – without a laboratory and without a test tube. In a recent Bible study curriculum quarterly used in my own Adventist denomination, the writer shares this incredible soundbite:

“The same Voice that first spoke light and life into existence will do so again. Then, through the power of His Word, whether in soft-pillowed caskets or in the churning bellies of fish and squid, the redeemed dead will rise and be reconstructed in bodies far surpassing anything humankind possessed since the Fall.”

Friend, if you believe in the Christian faith at all, then you need to believe in ALL of the Christian faith. The resurrection of Jesus and now the resurrection, the total returning, the restoring, of those we have lost. This hardest of all things to fix, this Ground Zero of human beings which, to the secular world, seems like an eternal loss, is for Jesus something He can do with one word, with one trumpet blast, in the twinkling of an eye.

Three days after the world was hit with this disaster, Billy Graham stood there in the National Cathedral, and he led us to these promises.

“There is hope for the future,” he said, “because of God’s promises. As a Christian, I have hope, not just for this life, but for heaven and the life to come. . . . The empty tomb [of Easter] tells us there is hope for eternal life, for Christ has conquered evil and death, and hell.”

Lisa Beamer’s marvelous bestseller after the loss of her Todd describes her CHOICE to continue to believe:

“I have chosen to believe God,” she testifies. “To believe He loves me and has a plan for now and eternity. I don’t claim to understand, but I choose DAILY – even moment by moment – to have faith not in what is seen but in what is unseen.”

Yes, friend, our returning Jesus can fix anything. He can certainly bring back Todd M. Beamer. And just for the record, He can also bring back Lorraine, Sandra, Jason, Leroy, CeeCee, Christian, Alan, Mark, Deora, Marion, Thomas, William, Georgine, Patricia, Joseph, Patrick, Edward, Jane, Colleen, Sonny, Jeremy, Lauren, Wanda, Donald, Linda, Richard, Toshiya, Hilda, Waleska, Nicole, Louis, Donald, Jean, Mark, Christine, John, Elizabeth, and Kristin.

And, if there’s a tombstone in your life . . . He can fix that too.