Before the first funeral I officiated as a young pastor, someone told me, “You never get used to standing beside a grave.” I have found that to be true. As a pastor, you learn what to say. You learn how to care for grieving families. You learn how to walk through the practical details of loss and making funeral arrangements, but you never get used to death itself.
This year has made that reality especially personal for me. As we grow older, the death of friends and family becomes increasingly common. The longer we live, the more often we experience the painful reality of saying goodbye. So far in 2026, I have lost two dear friends who have gone home to be with the Lord.
The first was a former senior pastor with whom I served on staff for several years at a church in Texas. Nate was only forty-nine years old. He left behind his wife, three teenage children, and the church he faithfully pastored for eighteen years. Over time, he became much more than a former pastor. He became a trusted mentor and a dear friend.
The second was my friend David, whom I had the privilege of pastoring for nearly nine years before moving to Colorado Springs. He and his wife were the older couple in our small group, and they became a tremendous encouragement to Lauren and me during our years in Illinois. Their friendship was one of God’s many kindnesses to our family.
Both men battled cancer. I watched their bodies gradually weaken, yet I also witnessed the remarkable grace of God sustaining them through suffering. Their lives reminded me of James 1:2-4,
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing,”
As well as 2 Corinthians 4:16-18,
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
Watching these men approach death has reminded me again that death is not merely an abstract theological doctrine, but a painful reality that every one of us must face. It has also reminded me that the Christian hope is not sentimental optimism or wishful thinking. Our hope rests upon a historical event that forever changed the destiny of everyone who belongs to Christ: the resurrection of Jesus.
The Bible tells us something our hearts already know. Death is not natural. It is not simply “a normal part of life.” Death is the consequence of sin entering God’s good creation. It is an enemy. That is why we instinctively recoil from it. We grieve because death tears apart body and soul, which God created to belong together. We mourn because something deep within us recognizes that the world is not as it should be.
That is why the words of Ecclesiastes are so important: “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). Funerals force us to reckon with realities that we often spend our lives trying to avoid. They remind us that life is brief, our days are numbered, and one day the people gathered around the graveside will be gathered around ours.
As sobering as that truth is, it is precisely where the hope of the gospel shines most brightly. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul addresses those who questioned the resurrection of the dead. His argument is straightforward. If Christ has not been raised, then Christianity collapses. Our faith is empty. Our preaching is empty. We remain in our sins. Those who have died in Christ are gone forever. We are, Paul says, “of all people most to be pitied.”
But then comes one of the greatest words in all of Scripture: “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:20). Everything changes because of that one reality. The resurrection is God’s declaration that Christ’s sacrifice for sin was completely accepted. Jesus did not merely die for sinners. He rose again, proving that sin’s penalty had been fully paid and death’s power had been broken. As Paul writes elsewhere, Christ “was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification” (Romans 4:25). The empty tomb is God’s public announcement that forgiveness has been secured for all who trust in His Son.
But the resurrection means even more than that. Paul calls Christ the “firstfruits” of those who have fallen asleep. The image comes from the Old Testament harvest. The firstfruits were never the whole harvest. They were the guarantee that more was coming. That means Jesus’ resurrection is not merely something we celebrate because it happened to Him. It is the guarantee of what will happen to everyone who belongs to Him.
As I spoke with Nate and David during their final days, I was reminded that their faith was strong, their hope and confidence was resting in Jesus, but that their stories weren’t over. Their bodies would soon be resting in the ground, but only for a little while. The cemetery is not their final destination. For the Christian, the grave is not a permanent home but a waiting place. One day Christ will return! The trumpet will sound. The dead in Christ will be raised with glorified, imperishable bodies. Every disease will be gone. Cancer will be no more. Every weakness will disappear. Every scar of sin and suffering will be erased forever. Death itself, the last enemy, will be destroyed.
That is why Christians grieve differently. We still cry. We still ache. We still feel the empty chair at the dinner table. We can miss our friends badly and wish so much that we could just talk to them one more time. Scripture never tells us not to grieve. Even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35).
But we grieve with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We know that those who die in Christ are safe in His presence even now. And we know that a day is coming when Christ will call their bodies from the grave just as surely as He walked out of His own tomb nearly two thousand years ago.
This hope also changes how we live today. Paul concludes his great resurrection chapter not by encouraging Christians merely to think about heaven, but by urging them to abound in the work of the Lord: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
Because Christ lives, nothing done for Him is wasted. Every act of faithfulness matters. Every sacrifice for the gospel matters. Every unseen act of service matters. Every tear shed in obedience matters. The resurrection guarantees that our labor has eternal significance.
Death remains an enemy. It still hurts. It still leaves empty places in our hearts. I have felt that deeply this year. Yet every funeral of a believer also becomes a quiet testimony that death does not have the final word. The final word belongs to Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, who declared, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
For those whose hope is in Christ, the cemetery is not the end of the story. The grave will one day give way to resurrection, sorrow to joy, and death to everlasting life. That is the hope that has sustained God’s people for two thousand years. It is the hope that comforts grieving hearts today. And it is the hope that allows us to stand beside even the darkest grave and say with confidence, “Because He lives, we also shall live.” (John 14:19)
