By Jack Wyman

The gentle breeze whispered through the tall trees and played with the setting sun. The peace was palpable.

This was a beautiful place. Its serenity lingered with its sacredness.

I’ve always loved visiting cemeteries. Where do you find such a rich and diverse history gathered in a single plot of earth?

The names. The dates. The diverse designs and sizes carved in stone, given as final tributes to lives now ended.

Some graves and headstones are cared for, others long abandoned. I’ve often wished I could restore them all. How reassuring to see a stately one. How sad to see one fallen and crumpled, the names and dates hard to make out.

But oh, what wonders if those beneath could speak! What would they tell us? What testimonies would they bear? What joys, what sadness, what achievements, what regrets?

This is the mortal dash on every headstone - the lives lived between the dates recorded. The secrets and remorse taken to the grave; the joy and satisfaction of a life well-lived.

Some here died young. They were children, some were babies. Some were in the prime of their lives. Others lived long. Some spanned a century; some a few years. Cemeteries gather the young and the old, the poor and the rich, the powerful and the destitute, the famous and the infamous. The characters and the pious.

They rest together. Side by side. They are a congregation of the silent. Death is their great equalizer.

Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis is one of the largest and most famous, fascinating - and beautiful - gardens of the dead. Poets, racing legends, politicians, soldiers, musicians, artists, and authors are buried here.

President Benjamin Harrison is interred here. So is the infamous gangster, John Dillinger. Colonel Eli Lilly is resting here. He became interested in chemicals and pharmaceuticals. And James Whitcomb Riley, the great American poet, is buried at Crown Hill.

As interesting as they are, cemeteries symbolize the grip of death. They remind us of the inevitability of mortality. They tell us of the weakness and fallenness of man. No matter how intriguing and wide-ranging the lives of those buried here, the same death took them all.

Death is the greatest shared experience of life. We shall all know it. The Bible tells us plainly and without equivocation, “it is appointed unto man once to die” (Hebrews 9:27).

“Appointed.”

Scheduled. Planned. Arranged. Pre-ordained by the God who gave us life. Determined before time itself. Not one of us can get an extension or postponement - though the scriptures tell us God gave King Hezekiah an extra 15 years of life. Hezekiah had pleaded for more time - and God answered him with the mercy only God can give.

We don’t usually plan to die, though illness may give us some time to prepare for “the great event.” For many, dying is the last thing they expected. Death strikes swiftly, like a thief in the night. We naturally anticipate a tomorrow that is promised to no one.

While most of us might enjoy a pleasant afternoon stroll through a cemetery, we would not wish to spend the night. The dark mystery and power of death - the great dread its stirs in the human heart - causes us to recoil at its proximity. We embrace life. We seek - in vain, it turns out - to do all we can to avoid and postpone death. To try and cheat it in some way.

“I don’t mind dying,” quipped Woody Allen, “I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

This ought never to be true for the Christian. We’ve no cause to fear death.

When the apostle John saw his vision of Christ, Jesus told him not to fear. “I am the living one. I was dead, but behold - I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and of hell” (Revelation 1:18). Jesus, the risen Savior and author of life, tore the bars of death from the souls of men and set at liberty their hope. Satan, the purveyor of death and destruction, was defeated and defanged at the open tomb.

In his firm and clear defense of the centrality and power of the resurrection, Paul told the Corinthian believers that death is “the last enemy” to be destroyed. It is our enemy; it brings shock and sorrow to our lives. We mourn in its wake. It will outlast many of us in this world. Perhaps all of us.

Paul, in rhetorical triumph, proclaims his defiance of the old adversary. Alluding to the prophet Hosea, he casts down the gauntlet at the black hem of the grim reaper.

“O death, where is your victory? O grave, where is your sting?” (I Corinthians 15:55). Through Christ and His finished work, God has given you and me victory over sin and the grave. Death will be our last foe standing. Be certain of this: it shall be destroyed.

“Death be not proud,” wrote English poet John Donne in 1609, “though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so…one short sleep past, we wake eternally; and death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”

The tears that shall be wiped away forever in heaven are shed for the loss of those we miss here and will always love. “There shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4). We shall see them again. Reunited for eternity.

The grave is never the end for those who have placed their trust in the Christ who conquered death. It is just the beginning.

So many are captives to the fear of death. Jesus died to break the power of the devil - and the power of death he once wielded. Jesus died and rose again to take away our fear.

Jesus Christ has set us free from our last enemy.

I’ll enjoy my visit to cemeteries. There will be none in heaven.

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