Can you imagine what it will be like to be “swallowed up by life”—to be surrounded by and saturated with life? The meal we could only faintly taste in moments of praying or laughing or marveling at a sunrise will be a feast set before us. “Then we will know fully, even as we have been fully known.”

Not long ago, a dear friend of mine and fellow church member was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Yesterday I preached his funeral service, mourned with his family, and joyfully reflected on his long life, rich legacy, and bold witness for Christ.

In the days leading up to my friend’s death, I thought much about 2 Corinthians 5—a passage in which the Apostle Paul reflects on the transience of this present life in contrast to a future life with God. In this life, our bodies age and decay. Wrinkles and spots appear. Strange pains creep into our bones. The uninvited guests of disease and weakness settle in and stay. Friends die, and we weep. Sooner than we realize, it will be our turn to be wept over.

Is this what it means to be human? Is it to develop a thirst for life only long enough to realize that the thirst can never be quenched? Or, as Bertrand Russel puts it, “to lose his dearest today, and tomorrow himself pass through the gate of darkness”? 

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