This is my dad’s grave in California. I can hardly believe I have to type those words: “my dad’s grave.” It’s been five years, but I’m still reeling under the shock of losing him. It’s so hard to accept. I have to make myself come to terms with it.
I’ve never seen a funeral do justice to the magnitude of the moment. I’ve never seen a grave do justice to what it represents. We matter. We will matter eternally. No funeral can communicate what cries out to be said. No grave can preserve the significance of what lies underneath. I object to this. I object with all my heart. I am offended. I am offended by death. I am offended by my dad’s death. I am offended far beyond my capacity for articulation. I am offended at our inability to observe and recount and say and signify what it all truly means and deserves.
But I console my otherwise inconsolable heart with this verse: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15). The word “precious” means just that. Not cheap. But precious. The Lord knows that we matter. The Lord knows how we feel. The Lord doesn’t throw us away.
Someday, because of the resurrection of Jesus, this modest grave in California — well, I’d better not be standing too close when it happens, because that grave is going to explode open when my dad’s glorified body, touched by our risen Lord, will burst forth in nuclear-powered immortality. That moment, that moment, will do justice to his significance in Christ.
How long, O Lord?