PROCESSION OF DEATH

Entry to a New World

WHEN a person dies, he is laid in a coffin which is then carried aloft towards the grave. This journey or funeral procession is unlike any journey that the man has undertaken. This journey marks the end of man’s existence on earth. He is now introduced into a world totally unknown and where rules of the game are quite different from those of the earth.

When man is born into this world, he immediately has recourse to mother’s compassion and father’s protection. He grows up among friends and relatives. Then he reaches adulthood and forges ahead on his chosen path through life.

His journey of life continues until finally death knocks on the door. Those relatives who had supported him through life now carry him to his final resting place. They lay him under a mound of earth where he is all alone with his Lord.

So far, he had been confronted with humans like himself; now he is face to face with God, infinitely greater than himself. Up till then, he had been in a world where he had power of his own, but now he finds himself absolutely powerless. Man, the most helpless of creatures, will come before God the All-Powerful—a meeting so awesome that it is almost beyond imagining.

People are dying here on earth. Not a day goes by without our seeing or hearing of the death of someone or the other. Yet we fail to realize the implications of death. This is because in our minds we lack a living picture of Heaven and Hell. We are preoccupied with other, totally unrelated, matters. We are too busy making homes for ourselves in this world to plan for our eternal abode. We are too concerned with worldly profit-making to care whether we have done enough to earn everlasting life. We are too preoccupied with improving our position in society to consolidate our relation with God.

We think of every human being in worldly terms. So, when a person dies, the loss we feel is mundane in nature in the sense that we think of him as one who gave so much to the world and now, he has been taken away from it. We see man in relation to this ephemeral world, but fail to see him in relation to the next eternal world. How then can we realize the implications of death? How can we see that, as one is laid to “rest”, one is, in fact, being led to one’s meeting with the Lord and one’s eternal fate?