Last night I watched the outstanding HBO movie “Taking Chance”. I highly recommend it! It really is fantastic. It stars Kevin Bacon and is the true story of a Marine escorting a fallen soldier’s body back home to be buried. Very well done. Rent it today.
Anyway, something from the movie stuck with me. They show a scene of the mortuary people cleaning and prepping the body- and they show a close up of them removing the deceased man’s watch. The watch was still running even though the wearer had been dead for days. For some reason that idea touched me. There are few things more useless than a watch to a dead man. No longer does he need to be on time, no more will promptness and tardiness be his concern; yet his wrist watch dutifully continues on in its task of counting every single second day after day. I don’t know what about that picture gets me, but something does. Maybe I’m tempted to say it proves that everything is meaningless- we’re only going to die someday… who cares if I’m late to a meeting or drop out of school, right? Or maybe I’m tempted to travel a bit lighter- worry less about the stuff that I have and acquire, and focus more on the intangibles of life- relationships, and sharing the hope that I have in Jesus… or maybe I’m tempted to savor every moment that I live- be consciously aware of every second that I’m alive and make the most of them because I’m only going to have so many… I don’t really know what it makes me think… I just know there’s something deep in that image…
Today I went to only my second chapel service all semester. It was fantastic. Chaplain Don told the story of the mega-rich drug dealer who made sure that no expense was spared at his funeral. He had a casket made of glass and had a horse procession pull him through the neighborhood on his way to his internment. It was a tremendous spectacle. A local news affiliate covered the story and asked an elderly neighbor what she thought of the gilded parade, and she simply answered, “Well, he’s still dead.” It’s so true. He had the best funeral money could buy- people are still talking about it today, but he’s still dead. Thanks be to God that the same cannot be said of our Savior from sin. His funeral was discrete and fogged in confusion, but it doesn’t matter because he didn’t stay in the tomb very long….
How those two thoughts- a watch that ticks away while the one who wears it lays dead, and an expensive funeral cannot change the fact that the deceased is still deceased- how they fit together, I do not know… but I thought it was at least a little odd that I came across those two thoughts within 20 hours of each other… so I just thought I would share them with you… can you draw some parallels?
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