Wednesday, August 17, 2011

"CAVES AND GRAVES"

     When Sarah died, Abraham bought the field and cave of Machpelah for a place to bury her.  When Abraham died he was buried in that cave alongside Sarah.  When his oldest son, Isaac and his wife Rebekah died, they were buried in that cave with Abraham and Sarah.  When Leah, the first wife of Isaac’s son Jacob, died she was buried in that cave.  Even though Jacob died in Egypt, his sons brought him back to the cave at Machpelah to be buried.  Those were the only persons buried in that cave.  It became a lodestone for the Israelites.  Their religion was called “the faith of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”.  They trusted the covenant promises God made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They worshiped the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”.  The cave at Machpelah can still be seen today.

A hundred years ago my grandfather bought three cemetery lots, each with four graves.  He buried his father and mother in the graves on the northwest corner.  Later, he would bury two of his own infant children in graves at that location.  He and his wife were buried there.  His two sons and their wives are buried there.  Just as no one else was buried at Machpelah, no one else will be buried in those three lots.  The great grandchildren and their progeny have scattered to more than half dozen states.  For all of them, those graves in that place are the stake that establishes their origin, their clan, their heritage.   

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Thoughts While Standing At My Father's Grave


My father died last year at the age of 93.  In four more days he would have been 94.  I wasn’t able to be at his funeral because of a snowstorm.  He is buried in a cemetery a thousand miles from where I live.  This past Sunday I visited his grave.  My father and mother are buried on a lot that adjoins the graves of my paternal great-grandfather and great-grandmother, my paternal grandfather and grandmother, and my aunt and uncle.  Nearby is the grave of a great-uncle. 

Why do we have graves in cemeteries with headstones and markers?  We make every possible effort to return the bodies of servicemen and servicewomen from foreign countries where they died so that they are buried in their home town or one of the national veterans’ cemeteries.  Their grave is marked with their name, date of birth and date of death.  For the Christian the body is placed in the earth to await the second coming of Christ.  “The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.”  At the very least the grave and its marker are a long-lasting declaration “This person lived upon the earth during these years; he/she is not forgotten.”

The Russians have a saying they use about someone who is not a likeable person, “Who will tend to his grave?”  I noticed that the graves of my uncle and aunt were decorated with flowers, an American flag and a tiny lantern that holds a candle.  They have two sons in town.  In another part of the cemetery the headstones of my maternal grandmother and maternal great-grandfather were knocked over as were a number of grave stones surrounding them.  They were either the objects of vandalism or maybe a tree had fallen in that area.  All of the graves are old.  My grandmother died almost fifty years ago and my great-grandfather before then.  I doubt if anyone in that town remembers either one of them.  Their headstones have become a moot point.

I am told that in Spain the cemeteries are so crowded that grave lots are leased for a year.  After a year the body is dug up and cremated.  It is nice that great-grandparents, grandparents, and parents can lie together resting in peace in adjoining grave lots.  That belongs to the past.  In our modern culture parents and children are often separated by hundreds or thousands of miles.  They will die, be buried, and their graves marked with the names, date of birth, and date of death.  No one in the nearby communities will care that they lived upon the earth during those years.  Will their children drive hundreds or thousands of miles to stand over their grave?