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Dear Friends,

Although not a traditional Lenten exercise, a walk through a cemetery is not a bad way to enter into the meditative spirit of the season.

It was in the cemetery of the Brandywine Baptist Church that I stood in front of a headstone with a worn and barely legible inscription.

In Memory of
AGNES wife of
John Powel
Who departed this Life
November 22, 1769
Aged 25 Years.

An epitaph beneath the memorial words was even more challenging to make out.  Crouching, I intensely studied the fading chisel marks, and traced with my finger here and there the ciphers needed to complete the rhyme.  It took a few minutes, but finally I was able to read Agnes’ parting words.

 

My flesh shall slumber in this Clay
Till the last Trumpets joyful Day
Then burst these bands with sweet surprise
And in my SAVIORS Image rise

 

This expression of faith was deeply moving to me.  Death deciphered by Easter.  The “sweet surprise” that death is not the end but prelude to a fuller, richer life to come.

Our Presbyterian confessions hold death releases a person’s immortal soul to go directly to God while the cast off mortal body awaits the End of Days when history will culminate in conformity with God’s good plan.  At the end time there will be a resurrection for all people reuniting body and soul and a day of judgment.  On that day our good Christian sister Agnes Powel will have her sweet surprise.  And in the interim, while her flesh slumbers in the clay, her soul blissfully rests in God.

Even given Biblical doctrine concerning such things, I am sure there is a lot we don’t understand about the mystery of life and death.  Sometimes the rhyme and reason of why things work out the way they do is hard to trace.  Undoubtedly this was the case for John Powel who lost his wife at a young age.  But of this we are confident: God is full of sweet surprises.  And of all God’s surprises, the sweetest is Easter and the promise of eternal life in Christ.

The celebration of Easter is April 24th   this year.  The cipher of death will be translated by Christ’s resurrection.  And so will life in the here and now.  Prepare to celebrate the Sweet Surprise!  We are all being called to Rise to new life in Christ.

Pastorally Yours,

Frank

Reverend Frank S. Deming, Jr.