Before Ben Passed

A week before Ben passed away I was preparing to teach at our church youth group. This is one of the scriptures, in paraphrase, that I was going to share (2Cor.5.4):

"For we who are in this body groan, being burdened, not because we want to be released from our body, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life".

Our perspective of death is entirely different from God's. As he see us, we are in a type of death while on this earth. Remember at the Garden of Eden? God told Adam and Eve, "in the day you eat of the (forbidden) fruit, in that day you will surely die". On the surface it appeared that God was wrong, Adam and Eve went on living for hundreds of years! But in reality, they did die. It was a death of the spirit.

I once saw a documentary about a man who had a head injury shortly after becoming newly married. He was struck in the forehead and was injured in the frontal lobe of the brain, the place where emotions are contained. Physically, from appearances, he recovered from his injuries, but he had lost the ability to feel emotion. He felt absolutely nothing for his new wife. No love, no affection, no feeling for the things that had brought them together. The young wife was doing her best to cope with her new husbands condition, but it was very hard.

I think this is a good example of what mankind is without God. Without God we are as an animal, an automaton; eating, drinking, indulging our fleshly appetites. But never fully experiencing the joy of our true identity in relationship with God. But then when we come to know God through Jesus, it's like a flame of life starts to burn brighter and brighter every day. New parts of our hearts are opened, we feel and realize things that we never knew before. Things like loving our enemies, or a new respect for our mates. There is a problem however: in this life, we can never completely experience what God has for us.

This is what it means when the scripture above says, "swallowed up by life". You see, death is more than a doorway. As the Apostle says in the scripture, 'death is really the process of being overwhelmed by life'.

You know me, I've never considered Ben as a "sweet guy", but I have to tell you a few days before Ben left us, we talked on the phone. I asked him about his relationship with someone with whom he had some conflict, he said, 'it was alright, they had talked'. I have to tell you, the rascal Ben, that rough prison guard, the biker, that fellow that was about as strong willed as anyone I've ever known, was so sweet sounding as we spoke. I wept because I could sense he was being swallowed up by life.

By the way, when I spoke to the youth group, I had to cover a different subject. I continue to weep with joy when I think of the end of Ben's suffering, and the joys he is experiencing now.