5 Minute Reflection #14.01: A Perfect Day For A Funeral

Every once in a while the distinctions blur between symbols and the things they represent. Metaphors materialize and ordinary events take on transcendent meaning. I attended a funeral this morning. It was a perfect day for it - heavy snow showers, a blustery wind and bitter cold. Colorless buildings, roads, cars, and pedestrians were dimly seen through the falling snow under a canvas painted in shades of white and gray stretched from horizon to horizon. It was the kind of day that makes mourning easy. It was also Ash Wednesday, for Christians an observance and reminder of human mortality - ashes to ashes and dust to dust.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken;for dust you are and to dust you will return. (Genesis 3:19 NIV)

Yet, we believe that this is not the end of the story. Although we live in the shadow of the winter and death, we look ahead with hope to the of end of winter, to the Resurrection and ultimately to a "new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade." (1 Peter 1:3-4)