Sunday, November 9, 2025

Meditation

When you don’t fully know something, or if you are unclear on how something works, what do you do? Sometimes we look before and after, searching what is around something in order to give us answers. Many of us did this when we were younger when unfamiliar words came up in a book we were reading. Other times, we can fill in the gaps with information we try to put together, sometimes from dubious sources. This is how rumors start, with someone who knew someone, who was there, or at least that is what we heard. Other times we fill in the gaps with answers that work best for us or are what we want. We don’t follow up, assuming that everything is done the way we want it to be. Countless work projects and events stumble because of these types of assumptions.
As Jesus is confronted by a group called the Sadducees, they tried to ask him a trick question about marriage and the resurrection. And this dialogue reveals for many of us questions of our own, chiefly what happens when we die, what does this look like, and what does this mean for those we love both living and dead.
With All Saints Day and Halloween just a week ago, we ask what happens when we die, what happens to those no longer with us, and how will it all end. To answer this question many fill in the gaps with thoughts and beliefs more influenced by things like TV shows, popular culture, and our own desires rather than the word of God. So to answer this question we don’t look there, but rather we turn to the Word of God and see to purpose and plan which God has put into place. And in the promises of God, not in ourselves or anywhere else, we find true, lasting comfort.