Beloved, death is difficult for a number of reasons. Death is final. Death comes suddenly. Death means saying goodbye to someone we love, someone we care about, someone we will dearly miss. And yet in the midst of the intensity of our grief and the suddenness of our loss, there is the underlying comfort of knowing that even though this is a time of great sorrow for us, it is a time of exceedingly great joy for our dear friend and brother, Jeff Dolan. And for this reason, as Charles Spurgeon once said: “Our tears are [plentiful], but they glisten in the light of faith and hope.”
In Philippians 1, the apostle Paul said that for the child of God dying means departing to be with Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul said to be absent from the body—that is, to die and have your soul depart from your physical body—is “to be at home with the Lord.” And in Luke 23, Jesus said to the man on the cross next to Him: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Beloved, even now as we gather to mourn the loss of Jeff, we do so with the joy of knowing that he has departed to be with Christ, that he is now at home with the Lord Jesus in a place called Paradise. That’s why Psalm 116:15 says: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” Today is precious in the sight of God because Jeff has been taken to glory, and therefore we do not grieve as those without hope.
In Philippians 1, the apostle Paul said that for the child of God dying means departing to be with Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul said to be absent from the body—that is, to die and have your soul depart from your physical body—is “to be at home with the Lord.” And in Luke 23, Jesus said to the man on the cross next to Him: “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” Beloved, even now as we gather to mourn the loss of Jeff, we do so with the joy of knowing that he has departed to be with Christ, that he is now at home with the Lord Jesus in a place called Paradise. That’s why Psalm 116:15 says: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones.” Today is precious in the sight of God because Jeff has been taken to glory, and therefore we do not grieve as those without hope.
