When Life Meets Death

Written by Ps Alby Yip

Have you ever wondered what lies behind the door of death, seriously? Not in the third or even second person. It is asking yourself that ultimate question, “What awaits me when I breathe my last?”

I have been asking myself that often. And this question was accentuated many times over the past three weeks. I had conducted six wake and funeral services and attended one other of a close friend of mine. It was emotionally draining but it was also spiritually sobering whenever I am in Mandai Crematorium.

There are two sets of doors there that always bring about a lot of emotions. For those who have been there, you will remember the door which swings open when the casket is brought into the service hall. Everyone will stand in respect of the arrival of the deceased for the final time. It marks the last time a welcome is extended for any human.

The second set of doors is the one at the viewing gallery. It is the final door the physical body of a human will pass. It marks also the final time we send off anyone. As the carriage carrying the casket neared the door, it will swing open and reveal the furnace that will eventually consume the human body and reduce it to ash.

We see the same two sets of doors in this season of Christmas. The first one was when God the Heavenly Father opened to send His Son away from the heavenly abode to the world of sin. The second was when God opened to allow the graves of Hades to consume Him. But we thank God that there were yet two more set of doors that God is in control.

It was the door of resurrection from death and the door of ascension for Christ to return and to be seated at the right hand of God. It is in God and through Christ that these “extra” two sets of doors are made available to believers that we may return to our Heavenly Father. Have you known Christ, really? And if you have, have your loved ones known Christ that they too may have these two “extra” sets of doors to heaven opened for them?

Let’s open the door of our hearts to Christ this season of Advent, if you have not, that Christ may open the door of salvation to you. Let’s also pray and endeavour to reach out to our loved ones that they too may come to experience Christ in a personal way that they too may not be locked in the first two sets of doors. That in Christ, they may enjoy the comfort of having the second two sets of doors opened for them to the Eternal Rest.