Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Darker than Dora

We just finished our Vacation Bible School week at church. I have reached a new level of mommy-dom as I not only purchased the CD of VBS songs, I jam out to it in my car on a regular basis. Move over emo and post punk, "ha-la-la-la-la-lalelujah" is here to stay. Something that occurred to me today as I was driving home from the health food store; the new tunes blaring from the speakers. The life of a Christian deals a lot with death. We die to ourselves every day, or we are supposed to. The great reward that we put all our hope in comes after our mortal bodies die. This comes up even as we try to pass our faith on to our children. One of the songs on the Vacation Bible School soundtrack is a peppy version of the old hymn, "Oh the Deep Deep Love of Jesus." One of the lines in the song is "Leading onward, leading homeward, to thy glorious rest above." I can't really think of any mainstream media geared toward kids that talks about what happens after they die. I certainly haven't heard Sponge Bob or Dora talk about their eternal resting place lately. It's what makes the life of a Christian different, a little darker, and dangerously more beautiful than anything the world can offer.

From time to time, I've heard Christian parents get offended when their teen wants to wear clothes bearing skulls on them, or seem to identify with death or darkness. I would challenge them to realize the importance of death in the daily life of one who makes Christ Lord of their lives: His death make it possible for us to have life. His pain makes it possible for us to have joy. And our greatest joy comes in earthly death - at which point we enter into glory with no more tears and no more goodbyes.

I look forward to sharing the beauty of death with my son someday.

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