A Door in the Graveyard
In 1943, Etta Shuber wrote the book PARIS UNDERGROUND, in which she talks about being trapped inside Paris when Hitler's storm troopers entered in the Spring of 1940. The Germans quickly shut down the country, guarded the borders, and refused to let anyone leave.
However, a small border town saw its population diminishing rapidly.
The Nazis found that the town cemetery straddled the border, and that the locals had opened up an ancient gate in the rear of the graveyard wall. Every time mourners entered the cemetery for a funeral, they kept right on walking out the back gate, emerging into the land of freedom and life.
When Jesus died on the cross, He bore the burden and paid the cost of our sins. When He rose from the grave, He blew out a door in the back of the cemetery.
As believers, though we may be sojourners here in the land of the dead; we don't linger. We keep right on walking through that valley of the shadow of death until we emerge into the land of the eternally living and forever free.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life" (John 5:24, ESV).
"And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life" (1 John 2:25, ESV).
Give Me Immortality And That's An Order!
Chinese archaeologists recently discovered a set of wooden slats in Hunan province recording an order from Emperor Qin Shihuang (who died in 210 BC) mandating a nationwide search for the elixir of life which he felt would alone provide him immortality. Also discovered among the 36,000 messages were replies from perplexed local officials who were embarrassed at their failure to meet his demands.
Emperor Qin's quest for eternal life was well known: He was responsible for the massive underground mausoleum in the northern province of Shaanxi filled with nearly 8000 terracotta soldiers built to protect him in the afterlife. The Qin dynasty -- notorious for its book burnings and executions of literati -- laid the foundation for China as the unified nation that has persisted for two millennia.
The Emperor's obsession with immortality and the COMMAND that it be brought to him were doomed from the start precisely because eternal life is the gracious GIFT of God, promised to all who simply receive it. Sinners that we are, we cannot demand, and we certainly can't command, anything from God.
In truth, all we really deserve is condemnation! However, the Apostle Paul declares in 2 Timothy 1:10 that God's saving grace "has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
Getting Your Digital Life In Order
Tim Herrera with The New York Times reports:
You’ve probably thought about what will happen to your finances, your possessions and maybe even your real estate when you die. But what about your Facebook account? Or your hard-drive backups?
For the past two decades, most of us in the modern world have gradually shifted our central living space online. That’s 20-ish years of documenting our real-life experiences while also creating entirely new versions of ourselves in countless places online.
These digital lives are basically immortal, so you may as well figure out while you’re still alive what will happen to them after you’re gone.
Here's what you should know about the websites and services that offer help:
Whom do you trust to mind your central online presence after your death? That’s probably the person you want to be your Facebook legacy contact.
This person will be able to write a post that will remain at the top of your profile, update your profile photo and respond to friend requests. You can also allow that person to download an archive of your public activity (including posts, photos and “likes”), but he or she can’t read your messages, so your most intimate secrets will be safe.
Alternatively, you can set your account to delete everything once Facebook is notified of your death.
Google lets you choose up to 10 people to be the executors of your account once you die or your account becomes inactive via its inactive account manager feature.
To set this up, choose an amount of time between sign-ins for your account to be designated “inactive.” Once that threshold is met (for example, you don’t sign into any Google service for a certain number of months), your chosen contact will get a prewritten email from you with, presumably, your wishes for your account.
Twitter has no equivalent to a legacy contact or a way to plan for your online data after your death. It does, however, let a “verified immediate family member of the deceased” delete your account if that person can provide your death certificate and other official documents.
Should the digital footprint we leave behind really be a point of great concern? What possible difference will that make to you once you’ve died? But the condition of your eternal soul will make a difference, an eternal difference.
What the New York Times will never publish is an article entitled, “Are You Spiritually Ready for Your Death?” The world thinks we should be more concerned about our digital lives than we are about our spiritual lives, about things that don’t really matter than things that do.
Don’t be so foolish! Flip your worries!!
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33).