JUST HAVE A LOVED ONE DIE?

HAVE YOU JUST HAD A LOVED ONE DIE? TAKE COMFORT!

Luke 16:22 “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried.”

We learn from a word of Jesus recorded by Luke that angels become the guides home of the dying. When a man dies, he finds entrance upon another order of life. Dying; what is it? Leaving behind the chance of ever dying; it is a dropping of the robe of flesh, which alone can die, and going out into the new order of life. I can imagine the spirit of a man finding himself just across the border, in the presence of the new reality, full of mystery; filled with the consciousness of loneliness, and of perplexity, knowing nothing of how to proceed. Jesus said that such a man was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.

"Abraham's bosom" was a Jewish phrase, used to describe the very heart of Heaven, the chief place of joy in the life that lay beyond. And in that way, He said, angels bore Lazarus; they met him, conducted him, and carried him. I think they still do it. I believe that when our loved ones have just passed where our voices can no longer reach, our eyes cheer, our hands minister; angels welcome them and bear them to some one of the habitations of the blessed, and lead them out in the first pilgrimages of that great and won­drous life that lies beyond.

carried by the angels. When a believer dies, he does not die alone. Angels have guarded him in life (Hebrews 1:14), and they will accompany his spirit in death, transporting him to the presence of the Lord. “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place” (Psalm 68:17).

 Abraham’s bosom. In the age before the cross and Christ’s victory over sin and death, the spirits of Jewish believers were transported, not to heaven, but to a separate compartment in the great pit at the heart of the earth, there to rest in peace awaiting the coming of Christ “and the opening of the prison to them that are bound” (Isaiah 61:1). This company of faithful was apparently under the care of “Father Abraham” (Luke 16:24).

Things are different now. We are present with the Lord according to Paul.