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Genesis 23
Our American society has done a very good job at taking away from us every semblance of actually having to face anything unpleasant. Our entertainment driven culture seldom focuses on actual death or suffering. Any that occurs is usually tidied up in one or two episodes and isn't really the main point of the program to begin with.
As a result, we have become a people who have outsourced dealing with pain or mortality to the professionals. Hospitals, nursing homes and cemeteries are rarely visited by most because we are too busy living life, pretending it will last forever, to concern ourselves with the implications of suffering and death. It was pointed out in a book that I read recently that many churches built today no longer have cemeteries connected to them.
Yet to be honest, it was through a number of these uncomfortable experiences that my eyes were opened to greater things. Having a cemetery near the church I came to Christ in played a part in having me think about eternal matters. My mother-in-law worked in a nursing home that my wife absolutely adored. She introduced me to some of the wonderful people there. It was hard to be there at first because I was unaccustomed to the painful knowledge of the deterioration of life. But I grew to love the visits with the people who exuded more joy than my infant Christian faith had known.
It is this unfamiliarity with suffering and death that bothers me about our current and future generations. I have seen the results of those who are unprepared for and unfamiliar with suffering and death. There is an anger often directed towards God that life expires, though we have never been told any different. Or there is a desecration of the memory of a family member for the possessions promised for this life vied by those left behind, fully convinced that there is nothing more than what they see.
I can sympathize with Abraham in this passage. The death is near to him. The pain is too close to want to think about it. So he plans to "bury his dead out of his sight". He doesn't want reminders. He wants to forget. So he did what we have done and places the suffering memory of loss outside of his reach.
But in forgetting, we run the risk of never thinking about the truly important things of life, death and the consideration of the reality of life beyond the grave through Jesus Christ. Maybe our time would be better spent in some uncomfortable places that are a reality too soon experienced by those not expecting it. By doing so, we may become aware of a Reality eclipsing the pain of our experience and offering Hope beyond any suffering we may have to endure in this life.
It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart. --Ecclesiastes 7:2
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