Jump Start # 3870
Ecclesiastes 7:2 “It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because that is the end of every man, and the living takes it to heart.”
Last Saturday I spent the big part of the day in a cemetery. No funeral on this day. My siblings and a whole bunch of our kids and a handful of my grandkids spent most of the day in two cemeteries. Now, my kids know I love old cemeteries. They can tell stories of me pulling the car over to the side of the road and seeing dad hiking through tall grass to look at an old cemetery. Many times I have been chasing down the grave of some long ago preacher that I heard about.
But this past Saturday was something special to us. We gathered to celebrate what would have been my dad’s 100th birthday at a greasy place to eat that was one of his favorites. Then off to the cemeteries. Beech Cemetery, just north of Coal City, is where my parents and great grandparents are buried. We placed flowers on the graves and stood and told stories. The grandchildren ran and played. Then off to Fiscus Cemetery, which is just a little west (if I have my directions straight) of Coal City. There my grandparents and more greats and great-greats are buried. Sprinkled throughout both cemeteries are all kinds of relatives and names I grew up hearing my dad talk about.
It was a good day. I’m glad to see the next generation of our kids interested in these things. They were asking questions and hearing stories that many had heard over and over. Life in the city can be so busy with schedules, things to get done that spending time in a cemetery can seem like a waste of time. For us, it was reflecting, bonding and remembering. Those cemeteries are hard to find. They are out in the sticks as country people say. We ran across a grave of a baby that lived just one day. We found a tombstone that was all in German. The wife’s grave, right next to it was in English. Interesting.
I wondered how many tears that ground held as people have gathered for more than 175 years to bury their dear family members. There was a family that had a baby die at one month. That same family, the next year buried a three-year-old, that had fallen in a pot of boiling water that was in the fireplace. Such sorrow. For many, life was simply surviving. Daily tasks, that they’d call chores, such as cooking, washing, gardening, took all day and as soon as they got done, it was time to start up again. Entertainment was rare and sitting down to watch TV is something those early pioneers could not understand.
There are a few thoughts to share from a visit to a cemetery:
First, I wondered if I’d like my forefathers. We assume we would because we are family, but would we? I wonder what they might have thought about me? Many of those buried were Christians. How interesting that we could never meet in this life, but we can in the eternal. I would love to have gone back in time on a Sunday and witnessed what worship was like for them. They did not have the education, books, study tools that we do today. Their faith was simple, yet it ran deep. And, I wonder if ours is just the opposite. I wonder if we have complex faith, knowing words and concepts, yet our faith runs shallow and superficial. We seem to have so many things that irritate us and worry us and yet, our times are so much better than what our forefathers endured.
Second, as Mary and the other women gathered to the grave of Jesus, I wonder what they were thinking? We know from the Scriptures that they were concerned about how they would move the heavy stone sealing the grave. Could they have done it on their own? They brought spices to put on the body of Jesus. They anticipated finding Jesus in the grave. Although the Lord had told the disciples multiple times that He would be raised, they just couldn’t understand that.
Third, as I bow and take the Lord’s Supper on Sunday, not only are the thoughts about a cross, but it’s about a grave, THE grave. The grave that was empty. The grave that could not hold Jesus. The grave that Satan for three days thought was the end of Jesus and that movement. The grave that let Jesus out and changed eternity for those who believe. Up from the grave He arose. And, because He lives, we can face tomorrow. Because He lives, we know that we will live.
Those old cemeteries house the bodies of generations gone by, but they do not hold the souls. I have a picture of my dad standing at the grave of my mother and just looking. I wonder what thoughts and memories were going through his mind and heart. Saturday I stood at both of their graves. It was my time to look, remember and think.
Singer Dan Fogelberg had a song called “Forefathers.” The song ends with these words:
And the sons become the fathers, the their daughters will be wives
As the torch is passed from hand to hand
And we struggle through our lives
Though the generations wander, the lineage survives
And all of us, from dust to dust, we all become forefathers by and by.
Taking these things to heart, that’s what our verse says today. The living reflect upon the dead.
I went to a cemetery…
Roger