Bulletin 7.30.23

“Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him just a gardener.”

— George Herbert

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“Death is the Great Interruption, tearing loved ones away from us, or us from them. Death is the Great Schism, ripping apart the material and immaterial parts of our being and sundering a whole person, who was never meant to be disembodied, even for a moment. Death is the Great Insult, because it reminds us, as Shakespeare said, that we are worm food. . . . Death is hideous and frightening and cruel and unusual. It is not the way life is supposed to be, and our grief in the face of death acknowledges that. Death is our Great Enemy, more than anything. It makes a claim on each and every one of us, pursuing us relentlessly through all our days. Modern people write and talk endlessly about love, especially romantic love, which eludes many. But no one can avoid death. It has been said that all the wars and plagues have never raised the death toll—it has always been one for each and every person. Yet we seem far less prepared for it than our ancestors.”

— Timothy Keller,  On Death (pp. 1–3)

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"So, indeed, we ought to realize that our souls will never seriously rise to the desire and contemplation of the future life until they’ve been soaked in scorn for this present life… Not only the learned understand this. Ordinary people also know this well-worn truth, and - judging it useful to remember- have highlighted it in many famous proverbs. But there’s nothing we bring to mind and think about less diligently than this truth. For we all make our plans as if we were constructing immortality for ourselves in this world. If we pass by a funeral or walk among graves, then, because our eyes are confronted with the image of death, we eloquently philosophize on the emptiness of life. But even this doesn’t always happen, for these things often don’t make an impression on us. And even when they do, our love of wisdom is momentary. It vanishes as soon as we turn our backs and leaves without a trace in our memory. In short, it fades like the applause in the theater of some pleasant show. Forgetting not just death, but even mortality itself.”

— John Calvin, A Little Book on the Christian Life (pp.92-94)

The Call to Worship:  The Revelation 15.1-4

Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God.  And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

"Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations!

Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name?

For You alone are holy;

For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED."