Life is better with a soundtrack.  In movies even the most mundane actions are rendered dramatic by a soundtrack.  We fill our lives with music to give emphasis to our daily life.   Our soundtrack takes shape in the playlists we curate.  In my youth this was limited to FM radio, but with the advent of Napster in the 90s and then its legal offspring, iTunes, Pandora, Spotify, and a host of others, we can add just the right musical context to every aspect of our lives.

One aspect that gets the most carefully crafted playlist is our funeral.   As a pastor and hospice chaplain, I officiate many funerals.   Sometimes the playlists are quite imaginative.  They reveal a lot about the person being eulogized.   And sometimes they are quite long.   One included, Tuesday’s Gone and Stairway to Heaven.   I have also seen Chubby Checker’s The Twist included.  And to the horror of the funeral directors, The Twist was accompanied by the family dancing around the casket.    

And while less, unconventional, there are many country songs which, though sweet in their sentiment, have significant theological problems.   Now I like Vince Gill and Steve Wariner as well as anyone, but Go Rest High is a tribute to Keith Whitley’s troubled life and Holes in the Floor of Heaven teaches in idea of heaven at odds with the Bible.   So let me encourage you as you are thinking of your funeral playlist.  Take some time to look at what the scripture says about life after death – both for the believer and the unbeliever – so that every part of our funeral service can bear witness to the goodness of our God and the truth of the gospel.

But what does the Bible say?   While we have considerable data in Isaiah and Revelation about life in the New Heavens and the New Earth, very little is given about the time between death and the resurrection and return of Christ.   Theologians refer to this time as the Intermediate State.   Some hold this is a time of unconscious soul sleep, others that it is a dreary dream world of souls in limbo.  Still others view this as a time of probation with a second chance for those that either did not hear the gospel or rejected it in this life.   But the Bible soundly refutes all these ideas and gives us a much better picture of a life absent from the body, but present with the Lord.

Sara Groves’ song, What Do I Know? articulates well the truth that despite what we don’t know about the ‘intermediate state’, it is what we do know that matters most.

I have a friend who just turned eighty-eight
and she just shared with me that she’s afraid of dying.
I sit here years from her experience
and try to bring her comfort.
I try to bring her comfort
But what do I know?
What do I know?

She grew up singing about the glory land,
and she would testify how Jesus changed her life.
It was easy to have faith when she was thirty-four,
but now her friends are dying, and death is at her door.
Oh, and what do I know?
Really, what do I know?
I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

She lost her husband after sixty years,
and as he slipped away she still had things to say.
Death can be so inconvenient.
You try to live and love.
It comes and interrupts.

And what do I know? What do I know?
I don’t know that there are harps in heaven,
Or the process for earning your wings.
I don’t know of bright lights at the ends of tunnels,
Or any of those things.

But I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be pretty good.
Oh, I know to be absent from this body is to be present with the Lord,
and from what I know of him, that must be very good.

What Do I Know? Sara Groves

Join us this Lord’s Day as we examine 2 Corinthians 5:1-9 and consider what this beautiful passage tells us about what we can know for certain about life in Paradise, while we wait for the Resurrection and the New Heavens and the New Earth.

We meet on the square in Pottsville, right next to historic Potts’ Inn at 10:30 am for worship.  Get directions here or contact us for more info.  Or join us on Facebook Live @PottsvilleARP or YouTube.