Tour Guide
Sermon
Life Everlasting
The Essential Book of Funeral Resources
Object:
For a faithful woman who was a tour guide
Tour Guide
Proverbs 3:5-6
Betty was a tour guide. So many people have appreciated the care she took to make their travels a success. They got on the bus in the morning and there was a seat reserved for them. When they went to the airport, Betty had their tickets ready. At lunchtime she knew where they would eat, and the food was always just right. After a long day of touring, Betty had the hotels ready for a night's stay. When you traveled with Betty, you never had to worry. She took the uncertainty out of the schedule, and the corners out of the roads.
I remember talking with one couple who had profited from her wisdom. They were telling me of their trip to Branson, Missouri. "It was great!" they said. "We didn't have a clue where we were going, but Betty took us in all the right doors, and our seats were the best! Not just good seats, but the best! We got to see the performers face-to-face! Betty knew what she was doing. We never had to worry about anything!"
That sounds like Betty, doesn't it? She was some tour guide!
Of course, she was a lot more than that. She was a faithful wife. She was a mom you could count on. She was a stable link in a big family -- Betty always knew what was going on, and she treated each person with equal concern because she truly cared.
Betty was a loyal member of our church. As the times changed, her place in this church, the church of her family, changed, yet her loyalty to the church never changed. That never wavered.
Betty had a heart for her community. She knew more people than most of us will ever meet in life. She remembered their names. When folks came to worship at her invitation, she and Bob were right there, first in line with their smiles of welcome.
But Betty was also a tour guide. She knew how to get people where they wanted to go, and she knew how to make the traveling itself happen in the best possible way. That's why I wasn't surprised when she chose these two verses to be read at her funeral. Betty knew how important a good tour guide is, and when it came to living the travels of her own life, she knew that she needed the best tour guide around. She knew that she needed to trust the travel arrangements to God.
I think of the words of Louise Haskins from her book, The Desert. She writes about the journey of her life and about the uncertainty of it all, and pens these lines: "... I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.' "
If I were to describe Betty's faith, especially in these last months, I couldn't put it better than that. She was traveling a very uncertain path in a very dark time, and yet she had every confidence that her tour guide would make the journey possible. She knew that her tour guide wouldn't let her fall, and she was confident that there was a good place for her to stay at the end of the journey. Betty trusted her tour guide.
Betty needed a good tour guide because life was becoming more and more uncertain for her. And so it is for all of us. Anything can happen. Even in the most well-planned tour, something out of the ordinary is bound to come up when you least expect it. Like an illness, for instance.
Remember King Hezekiah, lying on his bed in ancient Israel, brought down by a disease he couldn't name? He pleaded with God: "My tour isn't finished yet! There's so much more I want to see! There is so much more I have to do!"
But that's the way it is on the road of life. Things happen to us that we didn't plan. Circumstances turn out differently from what we thought.
I think, sometimes, that life is a lot like Tigger, the bouncy stuffed animal in the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh. Tigger loves to pounce. He loves to hide behind corners and jump out at his friends when they least expect it. That's how life surprises us, too, isn't it? That's why our thinking and our actions can get all messed up if we don't have someone to serve as our tour guide.
I remember a powerful story that became a popular movie. It was called Casualties of War (1989) and was based on the true remembrances of a man who had been sent over to Vietnam during the '70s. The story told about a platoon of soldiers who came from very safe streets in the United States and who were suddenly dropped off in a blazing jungle. Their friendly world was turned upside down. Their safety nets were gone. There were no tour guides to get them through this strange trip.
When they were left on their own in that time of great stress, in that situation of tremendous uncertainty, they went wild. They came upon a village, and suddenly there were guns firing at them. There were land mines scattered through the rice paddies. Every tree seemed to hide a sniper.
In their frenzy, those overwhelmed soldiers blasted their way through that village. Only one young girl survived their insane rampage, so they did things to her no animal would do to another.
Only one soldier among them said, "No!" Only this one fellow traveler among them tried to get them to stop, calling for them to have a conscience, but they wouldn't listen to this tour guide.
When Daniel Lang made the movie about that platoon, he went to interview that particular soldier. The man is now a Christian, and he said, "We all figured we might be dead in the next minute, so what difference did it make? But the longer I was over there, the more I became convinced that it was the other way around that counted -- that because we might not be around much longer we had to take extra care how we behaved."
He has a point. What do you do with life when it pounces? What do you do with circumstances that are unpredictable? You either can bounce along with it, caught in the sticky web and constant flow, or you can get yourself a tour guide who sees past the moment, who stands above the turmoil, and whose eyes search the horizons further than the next corner. You can trust that he will keep you safe during the interesting times of travel, and that he will help you make some sense out of the madness. You can trust that he will bring you home safely at night.
I sometimes think of a friend of mine who struggled with cancer, just like Betty did. She prayed for healing, just like Betty and Bob did. She had times of remission, and other times of excruciating pain. And through the whole of her ordeal she journaled. She wrote her thoughts down in a notebook.
Some of them were questions. Some were challenges. Some were prayers, many in the form of poetry. Here's what my friend said, at one point, in her fear:
I put on these shoes
but I do not want to walk
where you tell me I must go.
I did not hesitate, Lord
when you said
Put away your slippers
and take these walking shoes
but the path you point to
is nearly vertical
and I am afraid.
Sometimes that's what life does to us. It certainly did that at times to Bob and Betty, and it did that to my friend, also.
But here's the other side of the coin -- my friend could also write about hope and faith and trust. She calls one of her prayer poems "Journey," and it is her testimony about her life, now wasting away with cancer, and about her tour guide, now stronger and more present than ever. She wrote:
My soul runs
arms outstretched
down the corridor to you.
Ah, my feet may stumble
but how my heart can stride!
That's one thing to remember this evening: We need a tour guide in life because the journey itself is very uncertain. But these verses also remind us of a second thing -- the only qualified tour guide is one who has been there before you.
What made Betty a great tour guide? She did her homework! She knew where she was taking you. She found out all she could about a place and the arrangements necessary to get there. She knew what she was doing, and that's why people trusted her.
Now, if you've ever had occasion to read through the book of Proverbs, you know that this is precisely the theme of the book as a whole. In the first nine chapters we meet a young man, maybe in his twenties or early thirties, getting ready to make his mark in life. He's leaving home. He's going to find his fame and fortune.
On the night before he leaves, Mom and Dad have a little heart-to-heart chat with him. They sort through all the stuff that's ahead of him and tell him that it basically comes down to this: nobody knows for sure what tomorrow will hold except for the one who holds tomorrow. They wave their arms in front of him, showing him the balance between wisdom on this side, and folly on that. Finally, they get around to saying something like this: "We've lived a good many years, son, and we've got to tell you ... There are a lot of folks out there who want to buddy up to you. They want to be your good pal, your best friend. But they're not looking out for your best interests. Most of them want something in return. Son, we've only found one person out there who truly cares all the time. We call him the Lord. He's the one who knows life because he made life. Trust in him and you won't go wrong."
That's the theme of Proverbs, and it brings us to the hard stuff of faith. How do you trust someone you can't see? How do you follow a tour guide who is himself often very hidden? Where do you find direction in life when the one who is supposed to give direction doesn't show his hand?
This is where faith and trust get most difficult, but it is also where God gets most creative, because, in the person of Jesus, God showed his hand. Do you remember how Isaiah put it? He said, "The people walking around in darkness have seen a great light!" In effect he said, "There were a bunch of folks crouching down in the land of shadows, but a bright light has shone on them." And in his words the whole of history began to have meaning, because God, the great tour guide of the universe, made a special return visit to planet earth.
The God who knew the names of every beetle under every rock and leaf in the forest, the God who played among the stars, bowling with the planets of distant galaxies, the God who built the strings of DNA in your chromosomes from scratch.... This God decided to get personally involved in the affairs of the third rock from the sun in the galaxy called the Milky Way. And here among us God came in the person of Jesus to learn our language, to gain our experiences, and to give us a sense of the meaning of the universe itself.
That's why so many people in our community wear bracelets with the initials W.W.J.D. Those initials stand for the words "What would Jesus do?" They reflect on the fact that in the wanderings of life Jesus came to give some sense to its meanderings. He is the great tour guide of the universe in human flesh and bone. He has gone ahead of us. He even walked through the valley of the shadow of death in order to understand what we go through. More than that, he came out alive on the other side, and he says that it is possible for us, too, if we follow the journey he charts.
And that's the third important thing for us to think about tonight -- not only that life is uncertain so we all need a tour guide, and not only that the best tour guide is the one who has been there ahead of us. But now, more importantly, we need to understand that the right tour guide is the one who will bring us home. He won't leave us stranded. He won't show us the sights and then hike off somewhere by himself at the end of the day. He won't wimp out on us just when we need him most.
This is particularly important to us when we draw near to death. In our lives there is little that is tougher to face than death. Remember the words of W. H. Auden? They were used so powerfully in the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Auden reflects on the death of a close friend, a friend who was life itself to him, and he says:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message that He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song:
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
That describes how we often feel at a funeral, doesn't it? I felt that way when I stood next to my brother-in-law's casket. I know some of you feel that way today. Stop everything! My friend is gone! My Betty has died! Nothing will ever be the same again! And it won't. It won't. I can't pretend the pain away.
But here is where this business about the tour guide becomes so enormously significant, because the great tour guide of our faith says that he always brings his people home. He won't leave anybody behind during the day, and when the shadows of night fall he makes sure that everyone gets safely back to where they belong.
This is why, in the Christian church, we say: "I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting!" Jesus Christ, the great tour guide of his people, stops here to mourn with us this evening. But more than that, he also tells us that he is bound and determined to bring Betty home. He is not going to leave her in the grave, nor is he going to forget her spirit and allow it to wander forever in some world of the shades. He won't leave anyone behind in this great journey from time on into eternity.
Not one of God's children is lost! Jesus is the great tour guide, and that is his promise.
You know that poetry and art have been a part of the church from its very beginning. You probably know that the early Christians painted many pictures, trying to describe Jesus their Lord. You can still see many of these paintings on the walls of the catacombs beneath the streets of Rome.
There you can still see pictures of Jesus as a shepherd, caring for his lambs. You can see pictures of Jesus as a judge, holding court before the people of the earth. You can see pictures of Jesus as a fisherman, searching the waters in order to bring his own into the kingdom.
But there is another scene you can also see. Some pictures show Jesus with a harp in his arm, strumming the strings and singing beautiful music. What are these pictures trying to say? What message of theology do they tell? What scenes from the life of Jesus are they attempting to recall?
Interestingly, they are comparing Jesus to one of the great figures of Greek mythology. It was a story everyone knew by heart in those days. It was the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Do you know it?
Orpheus and Eurydice were great lovers. When they were married they did everything together. Orpheus sang songs to Eurydice and the world around them echoed with their love.
But then, one day, in the madness of life, Eurydice stumbled over a snake in the grass and she was bitten with venomous poison. She died. She died a painful death, and Orpheus was left alone.
Storytellers said that the world grew dark under his mourning. He couldn't live without Eurydice. His life was gone; his love was gone. And his wailing stilled the song of creation around. All of nature was hushed at the pain of Orpheus' grief.
The tale does not end at the funeral, however. Orpheus couldn't live without Eurydice, so in desperation he challenged the gates of Hades. He went down into the underworld to seek her spirit, and he bargained with the powers that held her until he broke her free. When he took her back to the world of the living the song of celebration rolled out to the farthest horizon! Eurydice is alive! Orpheus brought her back from the grave!
That's a powerful story, isn't it? A myth of heroic proportions! You and I know, of course, that there never was an Orpheus. We know there never was a Eurydice, and that no one ever marched into Hades to bring back the dead.
The early Christians knew that, too. But they also knew Jesus. They knew that Jesus, through his own death and resurrection, had done something similar to whatever that tale of Orpheus was about. They knew that Jesus had lost his love, that she had been taken from him by the monster of death. They knew that people who were the children of God had died. And they knew that Jesus had come to this earth to march into the grave itself and to reclaim his own, to bring back his love.
So it was that whenever Easter rolled around again, or when it came time to have a funeral, they could think of no better picture to mark on the walls than this: Jesus is our Orpheus! When we face the grave, he is the tour guide who will not leave us there stranded. He will come marching down into the underworld after us, and he will bring us home.
That's why those familiar songs were sung: "Jesus Loves Me!" and "Oh, How He Loves You And Me!" Because, in the journeys of her life, Betty knew her tour guide. Because, in the darkness and pain of these days, Bob and the family hold the hand of one who knows the path to peace and safety and care. Because, though Betty is gone from us, Jesus knows the way to the underworld, and he will not sleep until he has brought Betty home.
There's a tour guide you can trust with your life! Amen.
Tour Guide
Proverbs 3:5-6
Betty was a tour guide. So many people have appreciated the care she took to make their travels a success. They got on the bus in the morning and there was a seat reserved for them. When they went to the airport, Betty had their tickets ready. At lunchtime she knew where they would eat, and the food was always just right. After a long day of touring, Betty had the hotels ready for a night's stay. When you traveled with Betty, you never had to worry. She took the uncertainty out of the schedule, and the corners out of the roads.
I remember talking with one couple who had profited from her wisdom. They were telling me of their trip to Branson, Missouri. "It was great!" they said. "We didn't have a clue where we were going, but Betty took us in all the right doors, and our seats were the best! Not just good seats, but the best! We got to see the performers face-to-face! Betty knew what she was doing. We never had to worry about anything!"
That sounds like Betty, doesn't it? She was some tour guide!
Of course, she was a lot more than that. She was a faithful wife. She was a mom you could count on. She was a stable link in a big family -- Betty always knew what was going on, and she treated each person with equal concern because she truly cared.
Betty was a loyal member of our church. As the times changed, her place in this church, the church of her family, changed, yet her loyalty to the church never changed. That never wavered.
Betty had a heart for her community. She knew more people than most of us will ever meet in life. She remembered their names. When folks came to worship at her invitation, she and Bob were right there, first in line with their smiles of welcome.
But Betty was also a tour guide. She knew how to get people where they wanted to go, and she knew how to make the traveling itself happen in the best possible way. That's why I wasn't surprised when she chose these two verses to be read at her funeral. Betty knew how important a good tour guide is, and when it came to living the travels of her own life, she knew that she needed the best tour guide around. She knew that she needed to trust the travel arrangements to God.
I think of the words of Louise Haskins from her book, The Desert. She writes about the journey of her life and about the uncertainty of it all, and pens these lines: "... I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.' "
If I were to describe Betty's faith, especially in these last months, I couldn't put it better than that. She was traveling a very uncertain path in a very dark time, and yet she had every confidence that her tour guide would make the journey possible. She knew that her tour guide wouldn't let her fall, and she was confident that there was a good place for her to stay at the end of the journey. Betty trusted her tour guide.
Betty needed a good tour guide because life was becoming more and more uncertain for her. And so it is for all of us. Anything can happen. Even in the most well-planned tour, something out of the ordinary is bound to come up when you least expect it. Like an illness, for instance.
Remember King Hezekiah, lying on his bed in ancient Israel, brought down by a disease he couldn't name? He pleaded with God: "My tour isn't finished yet! There's so much more I want to see! There is so much more I have to do!"
But that's the way it is on the road of life. Things happen to us that we didn't plan. Circumstances turn out differently from what we thought.
I think, sometimes, that life is a lot like Tigger, the bouncy stuffed animal in the stories of Winnie-the-Pooh. Tigger loves to pounce. He loves to hide behind corners and jump out at his friends when they least expect it. That's how life surprises us, too, isn't it? That's why our thinking and our actions can get all messed up if we don't have someone to serve as our tour guide.
I remember a powerful story that became a popular movie. It was called Casualties of War (1989) and was based on the true remembrances of a man who had been sent over to Vietnam during the '70s. The story told about a platoon of soldiers who came from very safe streets in the United States and who were suddenly dropped off in a blazing jungle. Their friendly world was turned upside down. Their safety nets were gone. There were no tour guides to get them through this strange trip.
When they were left on their own in that time of great stress, in that situation of tremendous uncertainty, they went wild. They came upon a village, and suddenly there were guns firing at them. There were land mines scattered through the rice paddies. Every tree seemed to hide a sniper.
In their frenzy, those overwhelmed soldiers blasted their way through that village. Only one young girl survived their insane rampage, so they did things to her no animal would do to another.
Only one soldier among them said, "No!" Only this one fellow traveler among them tried to get them to stop, calling for them to have a conscience, but they wouldn't listen to this tour guide.
When Daniel Lang made the movie about that platoon, he went to interview that particular soldier. The man is now a Christian, and he said, "We all figured we might be dead in the next minute, so what difference did it make? But the longer I was over there, the more I became convinced that it was the other way around that counted -- that because we might not be around much longer we had to take extra care how we behaved."
He has a point. What do you do with life when it pounces? What do you do with circumstances that are unpredictable? You either can bounce along with it, caught in the sticky web and constant flow, or you can get yourself a tour guide who sees past the moment, who stands above the turmoil, and whose eyes search the horizons further than the next corner. You can trust that he will keep you safe during the interesting times of travel, and that he will help you make some sense out of the madness. You can trust that he will bring you home safely at night.
I sometimes think of a friend of mine who struggled with cancer, just like Betty did. She prayed for healing, just like Betty and Bob did. She had times of remission, and other times of excruciating pain. And through the whole of her ordeal she journaled. She wrote her thoughts down in a notebook.
Some of them were questions. Some were challenges. Some were prayers, many in the form of poetry. Here's what my friend said, at one point, in her fear:
I put on these shoes
but I do not want to walk
where you tell me I must go.
I did not hesitate, Lord
when you said
Put away your slippers
and take these walking shoes
but the path you point to
is nearly vertical
and I am afraid.
Sometimes that's what life does to us. It certainly did that at times to Bob and Betty, and it did that to my friend, also.
But here's the other side of the coin -- my friend could also write about hope and faith and trust. She calls one of her prayer poems "Journey," and it is her testimony about her life, now wasting away with cancer, and about her tour guide, now stronger and more present than ever. She wrote:
My soul runs
arms outstretched
down the corridor to you.
Ah, my feet may stumble
but how my heart can stride!
That's one thing to remember this evening: We need a tour guide in life because the journey itself is very uncertain. But these verses also remind us of a second thing -- the only qualified tour guide is one who has been there before you.
What made Betty a great tour guide? She did her homework! She knew where she was taking you. She found out all she could about a place and the arrangements necessary to get there. She knew what she was doing, and that's why people trusted her.
Now, if you've ever had occasion to read through the book of Proverbs, you know that this is precisely the theme of the book as a whole. In the first nine chapters we meet a young man, maybe in his twenties or early thirties, getting ready to make his mark in life. He's leaving home. He's going to find his fame and fortune.
On the night before he leaves, Mom and Dad have a little heart-to-heart chat with him. They sort through all the stuff that's ahead of him and tell him that it basically comes down to this: nobody knows for sure what tomorrow will hold except for the one who holds tomorrow. They wave their arms in front of him, showing him the balance between wisdom on this side, and folly on that. Finally, they get around to saying something like this: "We've lived a good many years, son, and we've got to tell you ... There are a lot of folks out there who want to buddy up to you. They want to be your good pal, your best friend. But they're not looking out for your best interests. Most of them want something in return. Son, we've only found one person out there who truly cares all the time. We call him the Lord. He's the one who knows life because he made life. Trust in him and you won't go wrong."
That's the theme of Proverbs, and it brings us to the hard stuff of faith. How do you trust someone you can't see? How do you follow a tour guide who is himself often very hidden? Where do you find direction in life when the one who is supposed to give direction doesn't show his hand?
This is where faith and trust get most difficult, but it is also where God gets most creative, because, in the person of Jesus, God showed his hand. Do you remember how Isaiah put it? He said, "The people walking around in darkness have seen a great light!" In effect he said, "There were a bunch of folks crouching down in the land of shadows, but a bright light has shone on them." And in his words the whole of history began to have meaning, because God, the great tour guide of the universe, made a special return visit to planet earth.
The God who knew the names of every beetle under every rock and leaf in the forest, the God who played among the stars, bowling with the planets of distant galaxies, the God who built the strings of DNA in your chromosomes from scratch.... This God decided to get personally involved in the affairs of the third rock from the sun in the galaxy called the Milky Way. And here among us God came in the person of Jesus to learn our language, to gain our experiences, and to give us a sense of the meaning of the universe itself.
That's why so many people in our community wear bracelets with the initials W.W.J.D. Those initials stand for the words "What would Jesus do?" They reflect on the fact that in the wanderings of life Jesus came to give some sense to its meanderings. He is the great tour guide of the universe in human flesh and bone. He has gone ahead of us. He even walked through the valley of the shadow of death in order to understand what we go through. More than that, he came out alive on the other side, and he says that it is possible for us, too, if we follow the journey he charts.
And that's the third important thing for us to think about tonight -- not only that life is uncertain so we all need a tour guide, and not only that the best tour guide is the one who has been there ahead of us. But now, more importantly, we need to understand that the right tour guide is the one who will bring us home. He won't leave us stranded. He won't show us the sights and then hike off somewhere by himself at the end of the day. He won't wimp out on us just when we need him most.
This is particularly important to us when we draw near to death. In our lives there is little that is tougher to face than death. Remember the words of W. H. Auden? They were used so powerfully in the film, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Auden reflects on the death of a close friend, a friend who was life itself to him, and he says:
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message that He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song:
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
That describes how we often feel at a funeral, doesn't it? I felt that way when I stood next to my brother-in-law's casket. I know some of you feel that way today. Stop everything! My friend is gone! My Betty has died! Nothing will ever be the same again! And it won't. It won't. I can't pretend the pain away.
But here is where this business about the tour guide becomes so enormously significant, because the great tour guide of our faith says that he always brings his people home. He won't leave anybody behind during the day, and when the shadows of night fall he makes sure that everyone gets safely back to where they belong.
This is why, in the Christian church, we say: "I believe in the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting!" Jesus Christ, the great tour guide of his people, stops here to mourn with us this evening. But more than that, he also tells us that he is bound and determined to bring Betty home. He is not going to leave her in the grave, nor is he going to forget her spirit and allow it to wander forever in some world of the shades. He won't leave anyone behind in this great journey from time on into eternity.
Not one of God's children is lost! Jesus is the great tour guide, and that is his promise.
You know that poetry and art have been a part of the church from its very beginning. You probably know that the early Christians painted many pictures, trying to describe Jesus their Lord. You can still see many of these paintings on the walls of the catacombs beneath the streets of Rome.
There you can still see pictures of Jesus as a shepherd, caring for his lambs. You can see pictures of Jesus as a judge, holding court before the people of the earth. You can see pictures of Jesus as a fisherman, searching the waters in order to bring his own into the kingdom.
But there is another scene you can also see. Some pictures show Jesus with a harp in his arm, strumming the strings and singing beautiful music. What are these pictures trying to say? What message of theology do they tell? What scenes from the life of Jesus are they attempting to recall?
Interestingly, they are comparing Jesus to one of the great figures of Greek mythology. It was a story everyone knew by heart in those days. It was the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice. Do you know it?
Orpheus and Eurydice were great lovers. When they were married they did everything together. Orpheus sang songs to Eurydice and the world around them echoed with their love.
But then, one day, in the madness of life, Eurydice stumbled over a snake in the grass and she was bitten with venomous poison. She died. She died a painful death, and Orpheus was left alone.
Storytellers said that the world grew dark under his mourning. He couldn't live without Eurydice. His life was gone; his love was gone. And his wailing stilled the song of creation around. All of nature was hushed at the pain of Orpheus' grief.
The tale does not end at the funeral, however. Orpheus couldn't live without Eurydice, so in desperation he challenged the gates of Hades. He went down into the underworld to seek her spirit, and he bargained with the powers that held her until he broke her free. When he took her back to the world of the living the song of celebration rolled out to the farthest horizon! Eurydice is alive! Orpheus brought her back from the grave!
That's a powerful story, isn't it? A myth of heroic proportions! You and I know, of course, that there never was an Orpheus. We know there never was a Eurydice, and that no one ever marched into Hades to bring back the dead.
The early Christians knew that, too. But they also knew Jesus. They knew that Jesus, through his own death and resurrection, had done something similar to whatever that tale of Orpheus was about. They knew that Jesus had lost his love, that she had been taken from him by the monster of death. They knew that people who were the children of God had died. And they knew that Jesus had come to this earth to march into the grave itself and to reclaim his own, to bring back his love.
So it was that whenever Easter rolled around again, or when it came time to have a funeral, they could think of no better picture to mark on the walls than this: Jesus is our Orpheus! When we face the grave, he is the tour guide who will not leave us there stranded. He will come marching down into the underworld after us, and he will bring us home.
That's why those familiar songs were sung: "Jesus Loves Me!" and "Oh, How He Loves You And Me!" Because, in the journeys of her life, Betty knew her tour guide. Because, in the darkness and pain of these days, Bob and the family hold the hand of one who knows the path to peace and safety and care. Because, though Betty is gone from us, Jesus knows the way to the underworld, and he will not sleep until he has brought Betty home.
There's a tour guide you can trust with your life! Amen.
