The Last Laugh and the Open Exit

On Jan 29th 2011 my old High School Biology teacher became unconscious due to a massive stroke; "Tia Susy" never regained consciousness and passed a week ago. She happens to be the mom of my friends too. We all grew up together back in our Ñaña neighborhood in Lima, Peru. We all graduated from the same school. She taught most of our large group of "Cole Union" friends Biology, was a class counselor, unofficial varsity volleyball coach, Girls Dean, and an ever-present figure in the life journey we all took as teenagers back "home" she smiled a lot; was fiery when needed be.

Rolando (her youngest son) and I underwent all three levels of education and graduated together from all three of them, we are both preachers. Ever since I recall his birthdays would always have some sort of meal or delicacy that she would happily prepare in order to feed the entire gang of boisterous kids on every September 24th. Good memories. Damaris and Sonia are her daughters, we are all good friends.  Her husband, Pr Francisco was also my teacher in college, a lot of memories indeed.

Last Thursday (Feb 3rd 2011) thanks to technology, I was able to watch the funeral, live. As part of the obsequies, people come up to give their condolences to the grieving family. I noticed something while this occurred.

As I observed them, I came to the conclusion that Adventists are “weird”, they are a strange group of people.  You see normally, in funerals, it’s all sadness and tears. People seldom show a lot of smiles (at least in Peruvian ones).  Death is the end of the road, no outlet from that street, death… is the final stage of the trip, hence people show a level of unbridled desperation (you'd think?).  

Not Adventists thou.  Their beliefs make them act often differently and funerals are no exception. You see sadness, you see tears, you see pain, but through the tears, and the comforting embraces a strange phenomenon seems to occur, like a sort of “which of these does not belong”? The answer: smiles.

Thus as I observe my friends, amid their sorrow, I also see in them even faintly a smile.  Yes, their mother is in the casket, yes, there is sadness in their hearts, but there is this glimmer of hope in their eyes.  A glimmer that is beyond a mere “she is in heaven now with Jesus". There is a true expression of belief, unbridled-fire-tested belief, that the late person is not necessarily “dead” but concurring with Scripture: sleeps.  It is as if things are not what they appear to be which tends to be God’s MO.  Things are distinctly different, and in death, there is something behind the scenes that Adventists see.  

She is not in heaven with Jesus, nor did she become an angel; she sleeps in the blessed rest of the righteous, a nap in the arms of Jesus.  All her works and her memory are now passed, the spark of life has gone back to the source, and now in the casket lays a sleeping and waiting body. But that is not what makes the Adventist smile. 

The secret seems to be found in the very name… "Adventist".  We await "The Advent", the "Second Coming of Jesus".  And this Advent, will not just bring Jesus back to earth, but it will bring Jesus in order to finalize what was finished at the cross.  He comes to take the captives home, to rescue those held hostage by the fear of death, he comes to operate and materialize the emancipation furnished for us on Calvary's hill; those who are still alive, and those who are sleeping.  At the final moment of this earth, when He comes, when He embodies the ADVENT his voice will wake his children up, and at that moment, my friends will reunite with their momma, my college professor will reunite with his wife… they will be together again as a family. 

So, for Adventists their belief is that when death comes, it is not a final destination, but actually a state of unconscious expectancy, an exit ramp to God's Eternity Freeway, shut down temporarily. We line up at that exit ramp until God opens it.  Similar to a bad Wyoming snow storm that shuts down the freeway; life as we currently know it has the freeway of eternity closed and we are stuck in some exit waiting for it to clear, waiting to get home.

  

Therefore Adventists smile.  So my friends could smile.  Behind their sad eyes, behind their tears, their hearts have more than just a glimmer of hope; they have this enormous light that comes from the reality that comforts them.  Thus my friend Rolando can actually stand up and utter a prayer at his mother’s funeral and thank God for the time he had with her in his life, and knows that he will see her again, quite soon. That belief allows him to type the words of the old Spanish Hymn "Cuan gloriosa sera la mañana" (How glorious that Morning will be) on his Facebook status. So it is that my friend Sonia can fly back to TX from the funeral, and be thankful with her friends that supported her far and near believing that "the morning is near".  So my friend Damaris can state that "we are always safe under His wings”; it is this hope that gives my old college professor the strength to stand in front to the funeral attendants and say “thank you all for your support”.  

That faith allows them to stand tall and look at the face of death and know that death does not have the last laugh.  It is the friend of Jesus that laughs at the end.  That hope, allows us to look at death, even as it takes away joy and the life of one of our beloved; we stare right back at death, and give it a cheeky smile under our tears. Our weeping is actually a veiled and paused laugh waiting to happen at the right time, because we know, we believe that through Christ, through his power we will have the last laugh, when the Advent occurs. We will look back at the empty grave as we rise from it, as the earth and sea give up their dead, and the words of the Apostle will ring in our minds, and perhaps with laughter, with overwhelming joy, a joy that is greater than the sadness that took our loved ones to that dirt nap, we will exclaim “O death where is your sting?, hey Grave where is your victory? …Whatcha got?? You got nothing!!!

That day is coming, the day when the snow storm abates, the road gets clear, and the exit opens. We will rev our engines; take that open exit and hop on to Eternity’s freeway… we’ll take a drive, and laugh all the way home and that day cannot come soon enough.