our kind sponsors. Give my love to Zoe - 7
My Dear Jerry,
I was sitting here in my study this morning doing nothing very serious except thinking! I was musing over the results of our referendum and wondering just what changes a Parliament in Scotland will make. I like the rest of my immediate family am very pleased with the outcome. A good decisive vote of nearly 74% in favour of having our government. I don’t know whether you saw much of this on your News.
As I sipped coffee and sorted through my mail, I was thinking how much I miss your letters. I know you have to be with your Mother just now in this difficult time, but it doesn’t stop me missing our correspondence. Do let me know how things are?
As I carried on in my displacement activities I remembered with great fondness Miss MCIndeor. When I met her first she must have been 94. Small, bright eyed, white-haired and housebound. She lived in the little house on the shores of Loch Indaal, Islay, where she had been born. She had been retired for 34 years when I first visited her as the new Minister. This lovely former teacher had a razor sharp mind and she still did the daily Glasgow Herald crossword, something I have never managed to complete.
She’s dead now having gone to be with the Lord at the age 102.
Sitting by the glowing peat fire on a dark mid winter’s day as a force 12 gale swept over the island she taught me something I have never forgotten. There had been a big funeral the day before (remind me sometime to tell you about funerals on Islay) and we were talking about the man who had died. As we talked in a somewhat melancholy fashion about death her face, unlike mine, suddenly brightened. She suddenly quoted in its entirety Question 37 of the Shorter Catechism. This is the catechism laid down by the Westminster Divines meeting in London in 1647!
Q37:
What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
Answer:
The souls of the righteous are at their death made perfect in holiness, and do immediately pass into glory; and their bodies, being still united to Christ, do rest in their graves till the resurrection.
It was she said her greatest comfort in her old age and she repeated it to herself almost every day.
In its essence it lays forth the primary teaching of the Bible concerning our fate at death.
It promises the following to those of us who follow the Lord.
At the moment of our death all our struggling to follow Jesus, to be good and sin free, to be holy, will cease and we will in an instant be made holy (see Hebrews 12v23) and we will in that same instant find ourselves face to face with Jesus. (see Philippians 1v23).
That in itself is wonderful news. Isn’t? It will all be over! We will be truly whole, healed and free! (The only difference between ourselves and the Catholics on this is that they would place purgatory here as a place where you will be made holy before you get to be face to face with Jesus).
Our bodies however, although still belonging to Christ (1 Thess 4v14) are corrupt and are buried or cremated. However when the general day of Resurrection comes, that is when Jesus returns, then our old bodies are transformed into new ones, and we are reunited with them ready to live in the new heaven and the new earth. (see Isaiah 57v2 & Job 19v26)
I don’t know if I have explained this very well. But think if you will about Jesus. When He rose from the dead his resurrection body was fundamentally different to the one He had before he was crucified. When He went with the disciple on the road to Emmaus they didn’t recognise him. He appeared in the midst of rooms where doors were closed. Mary didn’t recognise him.
Think too of the story of the transfiguration when his body was transformed and his clothes appeared to be whiter than white can ever be.
These are just little glimpses, through the curtain, beyond the grave. Enough for us to know. And to hope. We know so little, we see as Paul said, through a glass darkly.
But what I do know is that as I have dwelt on this great truth now over many years I am constantly filled with hope.
What a wonderful future awaits us!
How glad I am to know that one day, God willing, this body of mine will be transformed into something glorious. On dark days, when I look in my mind’s eye down a long difficult tunnel, always there at the end, is Jesus.
Smiling.
I couldn’t sit by the beds of the dying, or stand at the graveside or visit the crematorium if I didn’t have this belief and faith rooted deep in my heart.
I hope this is of some use to you.
I long to hear from you when you are able, you are in my prayers.
Who is looking after Zoe?
Stuart