Don't Forget the Nails

 
My neighbor and friend was gone. The funeral was going to be a somber event.  He would be missed.  His lifeless body would lie in a beautiful casket amid a cascade of beautiful flowers in the front of the church, but he would not be there.  The flowers would be taken away to shrivel, die, and be thrown in away.  The beautiful casket would be buried deep in the ground.  Then as the flowers that fade, his life, the memories he left with us all would fade and eventually become indistinct. 
As time passes and those who can remember will be forgotten in their graves themselves.    So what's the point of it all? 
 
These were some of the thoughts running around in my head as I walked up the street to the church and the funeral.  Being a Christian, I felt somewhat ashamed that I entertained this kind of hopelessness at this time, but I did.  I am only human myself and like the Bible says, "now we know in part."  Sometimes the parts don't fit in my little human brain.  There is so much I cannot fathom, so much I don't understand, so much that can  fill me with fear if I let it. 
As I looked down at the gravel street I was walking on, I saw an old screw and I picked it up.  I do this often on the roads when I run and try to remove road hazards when I come upon them.  But, this was no road hazard.  This was a road maker.  The old screw looked somewhat  like a nail, and my thought became:   "Don't forget the nails."  Strange.  This day was not about new birth, or God's saving grace, or the price Jesus paid so that we might be free:  or was it?  I seem to hear in my heart:  Look at the price I paid, the pain I bore for you.  But, the nails were not the end but the beginning.  Because He lives, we can live also.  Because after the nails there is an empty tomb freeing a grace to fill the hearts  of everyone who accepts it. 
And that grace has filled the heart of my friend too. Praise God there is an empty tomb in his life, and death and the grave are conquered for my friend, for me as well.  Praise God for the nails that hung Him on that cross so that He might rise again and live forevermore in the hearts of men.
 

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