Ashes in the Wind?
I read about a biologist who died fairly young. I didn’t know anything about the man, but he apparently loved to work in the jungles of the Congo. It had been his desire, too, to have been buried there. For whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Instead he had been cremated in the States, and his ashes were taken to the top of a high mountain and tossed into a strong wind that carried them away.
What caught my attention, however, was what was written about him after the ashes had been let loose into the wind.
“John,” the eulogy went, “your ashes are now blowing somewhere in the sky, and from there you will one day reach your beloved jungles again. Brought up by the winds, you will form into clouds that will drift over land and sea, up and down you will go, until one day, in a drop of rain, you will fall gently to the earth, to the jungle that you always called home. Be patient, John, for you will soon be home again.”
With all due respect for the dead, what’s his great hope? To be patient, because one day, as ashes blowing through the sky, he will eventually make it back home to the jungles of the Congo in a few raindrops?
Somehow, that hardly sounds too encouraging, does it?
What a contrast to the Christian hope, made certain by the blood of Jesus, that awaits us. Not ashes in the wind but, instead, a new reality: “Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13).
And that promise is found in Jesus.
