” He will wipe every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 21:4)
All of us have those days in our lives that remind us of sadder times. Today is that kind of day for me. While it seems like yesterday, my dad passed away 20 years ago today.
The sun never sets on a day that I don’t think about him. I loved him dearly and see so many of his qualities in my own children. The Bible is right. “A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children…” (Proverbs 13:22)
In the 23 years that I spent with him, he never once told me that he loved me. It didn’t matter. My dad showed his love for me every day of his life. I never wondered about it and have never regretted the fact that God gave me a father who had such hard time saying those words. I always realized that my dad found it much easier to express his love through what Dr. Gary Chapman refers to as “Acts of Service” in his book, The Five Love Languages. Indeed, he just had a different way of saying, “I love you, son.”
I know my dad believed in God, but he never told me anything about his own salvation experience. Our family’s pastor told us at my dad’s funeral that he had talked with my father about salvation and was confident that he knew the Lord and was “saved’. I never doubted that either.
Actually, my dad’s life reminds me a lot of the life of Jesus. He, too, was convicted for a crime that he did not commit, and in many ways it cost him his life. Yet, I never heard him murmur a sour word about the circumstances in which he found himself. Like Jesus, my dad forgave his enemies long before I ever understood Godly forgiveness. His unconditional forgiveness reminds me of what our Lord meant when he said to Peter, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.” (Matthew 18:22)
Jesus once told his disciples, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) It was through the life of my earthly father that I understood just what Christ meant. You see Jesus was talking about real sacrifices like the ones I saw my dad make when he had nothing more to give. As a teenager, I often felt guilty when he figured out a way to give something that he knew I wanted, even though I didn’t deserve it. My father showed me what God means by grace.
When my dad died on that cold January day, my heart was hardened. God had already taken my mother away from me before I had the chance to get to know her. And now, my dad was gone, too, just as I was getting to know him. I cannot remember feeling any lonelier or more afraid.
Funerals are often awkward occasions for pastors. They often struggle to find just the right words to comfort the bereaved. I wish they would deal with the loneliness and fear that tomorrow will inevitably bring. And I wish that they would remember to remind us that God understands the tears that course down our cheeks. His own son shed them over the death of Lazarus. (John 11:35)
You know something else? God also understands how it feels to lose a loved one. Remember, he once lost a son.
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