Death

Last weekend, I took a day trip to Makeni, about two to three hours from Kabala, to go to the supermarket and to visit a friend.  I left Kabala early in the morning and went to the station where I took a taxi to Makeni.  The first unfortunate part about this trip was that the taxi did not have breaks.  The second part was that I had to sit in the front seat with another man.  Half of my body was hanging off of the seat and anytime the driver wanted to change gear, I had to lift up my whole body. 

The third unfortunate part I did not find out until we stopped at a village along the way.  As we stopped at this village, an older woman came out of the car and immediately fell onto the ground and began wailing.  I was so confused at what was going on.  As I listened to her and the members of the village who had gathered around her, I realized that her son was about to die.  I had not noticed until then, but he had been in the back of the taxi the whole time.  Her husband came to pick the boy up, for he must have been at least 15 years of age. 

From listening to the conversations, the boy had been taken to Kabala for treatment, but all the treatments had failed.  The mother was carrying the boy back to the village to die, and to give him a proper burial.  As I saw the father carrying the boy into their house and the mother wailing for her son who was about to die, it broke my heart. 

At that moment, I just prayed in my heart for that boy.  The pain of death seemed so real to me.  I did not know if the boy was a Christian or a Muslim.  But how painful death must be when you do not believe in the power of Jesus.  How painful to watch the life of someone you love waste away, with no eternal life. 

It is easy to talk about how if we live a life in relationship with God, we will get to spend eternity with him.  It is easy to talk about how if you do not have a relationship that you will go to hell.  But it is not easy to see it truly happening; to see someone on the verge of death and not know where they are going. 

The other day, as I was walking to the Christian Extension Services office from school, I ran into a funeral procession.  A young woman, who was a nurse at the local hospital, had just died from some sickness.   The people of the town had filled up the street to witness the burial of the woman.  The people were dressed in beautiful Africana to honor her and her family.  Many of the women were wailing.   I wanted to just pass through but I felt that I needed to stay and pay my respects, as I clearly stood out, and could not pass by unnoticed. 

The body was wrapped in white cloth before the burial.  They carried the body out in a wooden box and they loaded it into an ambulance and drove to the burial site.  As I was about the leave, several people were escorting her daughter from the house into the motorcar.  To see the pain and anger on her face, the tears she had been crying for the loss of her mother, was hard to watch.

To see the pain on the family’s faces, made me think about the reality of life if you are not a Christian.  Why is it even worth living on this earth, if you are just going to die?  People will forget you, what is the point?  Where does your purpose in life come from?   

I began to thank God for bringing meaning and purpose into my life.  Through God, he has given a special plan for my life.  God’s power is working in my life as he leads me and guides me.  I have encountered God’s power especially during this Easter season.  I have been telling my students the story of Easter in class every morning for the past two weeks.  My students love stories, so I tell it to them in a story format.   And I guess I must be telling them well when they ask me to tell the story a second time in the same morning. 

As I was telling my students the Easter story, some certain parts caught my attention.  I was telling my students about how the chief priests were the ones who wanted to kill Jesus.  They wanted to kill him because they were jealous.  They wanted to kill him because Jesus had power that they did not have; because people were beginning to turn from following the chief priests to following Jesus.  The church leaders were the ones who beat Jesus, who mocked him, who pounded nails into his hands and feet and crucified him, because they were jealous. 

As I was telling my students this, I realized how easy it is for leaders in the church to stray from the true meaning of church.  How easy it is to get distracted by money, or greed, or pride.   This goes not only for church leaders, but also for all people.  It has brought to my attention how easily we become jealous, even myself.  How easily I look at others and want what they have.  We, as humans, can never be satisfied.  We always want what we do not have.  But that is the beauty and power of Jesus, because we can find our satisfaction through him.  We can find our worth through a relationship with him. 

The other day, I was telling my students how after Jesus died the curtain was torn.  I never realized the significance of the curtain being torn until a few days ago.  Before Jesus died, if people wanted to communicate with God, they had to go through the chief priests who would then intercede for us.  But now, anyone can communicate with God.  What a beautiful thing.  Through Jesus, we are able to talk to God at any time.  As my relationship with God has grown stronger, I see the meaning in the temple curtain being torn.  I see the amazing power of having our own relationship with God. 

One of my students asked me “is this the last story?”  And as I thought about his question, I realized the story never really ends, and it will not end until Jesus comes back.  Before Jesus went up into heaven, he commanded us to go and tell the world about him.  Let us tell the good news that Jesus is Lord of all, that he the one true God.  Through God, the sting of death is taken away.  Death becomes not hopeless, sad, event, but a celebration.  A celebration of a life that was lived with purpose, a life devoted to showing God’s love to all people.