Reflections on the Beach: Beauty in Death

 

Reflections on the Beach

Week Six

"Beauty in Death"

Focus Passage: Psalm 116

Bible Reading: 1st Corinthians 9-15

      No voyage to the beach is complete until you have searched for sea shells (searched for sea shells sounds like a tongue twister).  I personally find the exploration for sea shells to be very relaxing.  My family and I walk down the beach, toes in the water, scanning the shore for a treasured  shell.  Each of you have probably stood where the tide was breaking trying to find the perfect shell being brought in by the waves.  There is an excitement as you find a big sea shell.  I remember one occasion when my daughter and I missed getting a large shell.  My daughter was super bummed so I told her we would pray that God would bring it back, and much to our surprise the next wave brought it in!

      Shells are beautiful.  We always bring home a bag full of them.  There is a certain irony though in the beauty of a sea shell, each sea shell is a remnant  of something  that died.  Each of those ornate and decorated shells always reminds me of death.  That sounds like an oxymoron, beauty in death.  How can death be beautiful?  Can there be beauty in death?  The answer is yes.  The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones."  God calls death precious, beautiful.  How can God call such a horrible thing beautiful?  Let's first understand that it's not the death of all people that's beautiful, according to the end of verse fifteen it's the death of His godly ones.  That sounds even more strange and morbid.  God considers the death of His people beautiful.  I don't often associate the death of those nearest to me as beautiful, but instead as painful.  But it's painful for me because that person leaves me via the avenue of death.  Let's instead look at it from the perspective of God.  The death of a follower brings that person to Him in heaven.  That's why God can call death beautiful, it's not a loss for Him but instead a gain.  Death is scary and an air of uncertainty hangs around it.  The timing and means of our death are left a mystery for us, but death is indeed a certainty, unavoidable.  But if someone we know, or we ourselves, have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ then God exclaims with excitement that death is precious.  Precious because when the barrier of death falls down that person gets to go home.  What a joy!

Reflections on the Road:
The past year has caused our society to think a lot about death, maybe even our own death.  Would God label your death as precious or painful?  God desires that no men die without coming to saving, repentant faith.  Have you come to Jesus?  Do you have the assurance of salvation through the finished work of Jesus?