What Happens...
To Your Body When You die?
The question has been asked, What happens to my body when I die? A very popular TV show is called Extreme Makeover and on this program people with various physical imperfections receive the ultimate extreme makeover. Some want a smaller nose, squarer jaw lines, more hair, straighter whiter teeth, sumptuous lips, liposuction, did I say hair on their forehead (MEMORIES) new clothes and or shoes among other things. At the end of the show they make their grand entrance to family, friends and TV watchers around the globe waiting to receive their reaction and approval.
Very few people in this world may receive an extreme makeover but every believer in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will receive an extreme makeover one day. And oh how those who struggle living with the B complex anticipates that day.
You know the B Complex don’t you? It consist of five stages: Baldness, Bifocals, Bridges, Bad memory, and Bunions. The way one can tell if that they are an official recipient of the B Complex is simple: Mirror, Mirror on the wall… YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING! For the reality of life is that the older we get the more we long to look good and classy. Kind of like the person who looked in the mirror and bragged to them self about how good-looking they are. As they looked down they bragged that they knew nobody else who had a pair of alligator shoes like theirs. As they stepped out into the snow they realized they had forgotten to put their shoes on.
I have been told that life consists of three phases: youth, middle age and you’re looking good but I believe the reality of life is that as we begin to fall apart, we begin to groan for glory. We eagerly anticipate our new, remodeled, perfect body in heaven.
Listen to what Paul tells us as he uses the figures of a tent and and a house from God in speaking of death and resurrection in:
2 Corinthians 5:1-4:
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling, so that by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety; not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. As a tent is a temporary and not sturdy place to live in, and we do not want to become naked for to become naked is to be exposed in death for in death, what is there to hide? Frail and wasting away while we groan in this lifetime while yearning to put on the body one day that is strong and reliable, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
In the words of grandma who told me how she wakes up every morning to the men in her life that wait to embrace and see her to sleep at night. Every morning as she gets out of bed Arthritis awaits to hug her and as she steps out of bed her friend Pokahinis greets her, Then as she steps out of bed with Pokahinis after her shower Arthritis and Pokahinis walks into the bedroom with her to greet her friend who waits at her bedside, Ben gay. Her friends spend the entire day with her and as she goes to sleep at night her friend Felix greets her as she feels her body grow weary and fall asleep.
How many of us spend our entire life in touch, worried, about grandma’s friends and in the process do not feel the presence of God while forgetting, 2 Corinthians 5:5, in our lives:
He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has
given us the Spirit as a guarantee.
Forgetting, Philippians 3:20-21:
But our commonwealth is in heaven, and from it we await a
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly
body to be like his glorious Body, by the power which
enables him even to subject all things to himself.
For the Bible tells us our resurrected bodies will be just like the resurrected body of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in:1 John 3:2-3,
Beloved, we who are God’s children now; it does not appear
what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who
thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.
Can you imagine what our resurrected bodies will look like? There will be no disease, no baldheads or gray hair, no bloat or waistlines to worry about. No
decay, hearing aides, false teeth or false hair or tri-focal! For the Bible makes it clear in two main places in the New Testament what will occur at the resurrection of the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:50-53,
I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of God, not does the perishable inherit the
imperishable. Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in a
twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet
will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we shall be changed. For the perishable nature
must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature
must put on immortality.
For our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died on the old wooden cross at Calvary was buried in a tomb and on the third day he ascended into heaven.
Jesus resurrected body possessed: Flesh and bone: Luke 24:39-40 Jesus ate food: Luke 24: 41-43 & John 21: 12-15 Jesus was recognized by His disciples: Luke 24:31
In the words of Mark Twain: Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Instead of worrying about what we shall be clothed in upon our resurrection we need to be concerned about what we are clothed in this life, because if we’re in Christ then we’re in God’s keeping.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17:
For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we
who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, shall
not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord
himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command,
with the archangel’s call, and with the sound of the trumpet
of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first; then we who are
alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in
the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always
be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these
words.
We all shall die one day but in the living let us take time each day to take care of the gift that God has given each one of us.
Thank God for your body for God created it and in the process we are responsible to take care of this body while not comparing it to others, but accepting where we are at this moment. In our daily lives we need to acknowledge where we are at this very moment and the limitations of and from illness and age that may be placed upon us.
In the words of wisdom that an elderly friend once told me, “Walter, life is like a compass that you hold before you. If you live long enough you begin to feel like everything points south and the only thing that looks north, that looks up on a compass, are your eyes.” Today ends our series titled, “What Happens” as we have examined sin and death, being a good steward in having a will, a Living Will, an Advance Directive and pre-planning our funeral, is it a sin to be cremated versus being buried, what will heaven be like, do people really die and go to hell, and what happens to my body when I die?
The question I ask of each of you is not What Happens? The question I ask of you is very simple, yet it is the most profound and weighty question one may be asked. Will you go to heaven when you die or when Jesus comes the 2nd time? Are you prepared and is heaven in your future for I believe that only those who are prepared to die can enjoy living in this life, as we know life in the sin of the flesh. For in the next life the stakes can be even higher than in this life, smoking or non- smoking. Burning in hell or basking in the glory of heaven. For none of us knows how much time we have left on this earth. What I know is that we have this moment together. Only God knows what the next moment may bring.
In this six-week series, which has been on my heart and unleashed by Pat Allen asking me the question, “What Happens,” is a prayer. A prayer that you have stopped to think, that something in this series has struck a nerve with you. A seed has been planted in you that has made you stop, look, and think about what direction you are taking in your life by becoming pro-active in your living, your dying and your death. For in this life time it only takes one breath to enter this world and one breath to exit this world, every breath in-between is a gift. What are you doing about the gift?
I don’t know about you but in my life I’m excited about meeting the upper taker, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Because of my excitement I’m not concerned or worried about the undertaker.
Let us pray,
Father God you have told us in your word, 1 Corinthians 15:54-57: When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on the immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen
