A funeral. A stump. An expectation.
“If a man dies, will he live again?”
The question has haunted humans ever since Genesis 3.
Job, perhaps the earliest written First Testament book, has the answer.
Find out what Job knew, what Jesus proved, by watching this week’s “Truth in Two” (full text below).
Is there life after death? Read Luke 24.
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work of RATIO CHRISTI (here). Subscribe to “Truth in Two” videos from Comenius (here). Mark is President of The Comenius Institute (website). Dr. Eckel spends time with Christian young people in public university (1 minute video), hosts a weekly radio program with diverse groups of guests (1 minute video), and interprets culture from a Christian vantage point (1 minute video). Consider becoming a Comenius patron (here).
Picture Credit: Luke Renoe, Snappy Goat, Negin Naseri on Scopio
FULL TEXT:
Years ago, I came home to speak at my grandmother’s funeral. During the same visit, I was helping to cut down a tree in a neighbor’s yard. I remember, like it was yesterday, we were taking a break. There were close to a dozen men sitting on the lawn, drinking lemonade. Someone offhandedly remarked that the following spring, shoots would emerge from around the stump of that tree. You see, even when you cut down a tree, the roots are still alive.
The combination of tree-cutting and my grandmother’s funeral immediately became “one” in my mind. I had chosen for my eulogy text Job 14:7-14. Job’s words became the basis for both a funeral sermon and a gospel message. Sitting around that tree, among a dozen men, I began to paraphrase Job’s words:
Job says, “There is hope for a tree. If it’s cut down, it will sprout again. Shoots will sprout from the ground like a young plant.”
In that moment, my small audience then heard the connection to the resurrection. Job continues
“If a man dies, shall he live again? I will wait until my renewal should come.”
“The words ‘hope’ and ‘renewal’ are the same words in Hebrew,” I was ending my break-time sermon. “Just like this tree stump will produce shoots in the spring,” I was nearing the punchline now, “Job says a believing man, a man committed to God, will be resurrected to new life.”
The congregation heard these same words at my grandmother’s funeral. And each of us should hear Jesus’ words from John 11:25 during the Resurrection Celebration, “I am the resurrection and the life. Thought he dies, the one who believes in me, will live.”
So even tree stumps shout the truth of the resurrection: He is risen!
For Truth in Two, this is Dr. Mark Eckel, President of the Comenius Institute, personally seeking truth wherever it’s found.