One Day Left: The Funeral

I went to the funeral after all.  There were more mourners there than I would have expected for a loner like Jared.  Even Eryn came!  She was in a stunning black dress.  I’m not even human and I noticed that.  As it turns out, I was last to arrive, which was good because I can’t stand the mushy parts of funerals.  Too much love for something like me.  By now you know I need the tension.

The pastor approached the pulpit, as he entered, the congregation stood up.

“Please remain standing as the family enters.”

The congregation did as instructed.  This was my moment for one last chance to dig at Eryn.  I quickly found my way into her brain to mention this one important fact.

“Eryn.  You killed Jared.  He can’t handle love.  It’s too much for him.  Now he’s dead, and it’s all your fault.”

There! There was the tension I needed!

I slunk out of her brain and found myself a spot at the back of the sanctuary to listen to the pastor’s sermon.  He was fresh out of seminary and this was his first funeral.  He began to speak.

“Friends and family, we are here to mourn the loss of Jared Abernathy.  Death is always unexpected.  None of us know how much time we have left.  Some of you, or perhaps myself will die deaths just as tragically.  I’m sure you’d like me to tell you that Jared was resting comfortably in heaven right now but I never knew Jared.  I don’t know for sure if Jared was saved by Jesus Christ.   Only through Christ can any of us get into heaven.  Some of you may think that’s not fair  It has nothing to do with anything we ourselves do.  We are all inherently bad as human beings.  Even me.”

There was a gasp from the congregation.  Someone didn’t know that pastors were dirty sinners in need of Christ’s grace too.

“Yes sir, it’s true.  I’m a pastor and I have done many evil things that displease God.  He calls us to be holy and all of us have fallen short of that mark.  The penalty for that is death and hell.  Yes, Hell is a real place.  It’s not just for ‘bad people,’ ‘good people’ go there too.  God’s standard for what is good is so much higher than ours.  There’s nothing we can do to be worthy of heaven by ourselves.  However, through God’s grace, He offered up his son, Jesus Christ, to take our sins upon himself when he died the most cruel death. Crucifixion.   Jesus never ever sinned and he gets the death that was meant for each of us.  Do you think that’s fair?  My Lord and Savior gets killed brutally and in exchange I get His righteousness.  So that when God looks at me at the end of my life he sees the righteousness of His son instead of my filthy sin.  Through Christ’s death many can receive eternal life with Him as it was originally intended.  Freedom from sin!  It doesn’t mean we’ll never sin again, but we have access to Christ’s power to help us fight against it.  If we love Jesus, we will fight against sin and do the things that please him, not because we’re trying to earn our way into heaven on ‘good’ behavior but because we love the Savior who gave everything for us and did the work we could not do to justify us for what we could not merit on our own.  The question is, what will you do now that you have heard this?”

The crowd of mourners was then dismissed quietly.

I suppose it’s about time that I figure out what to do next.  I will never get to taste the rest of death myself.  I am a wanderer, going from human to human, forever.  Hopefully, I won’t lose the next one I find.  Better he or she be depressed than me.

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