About That Dying Business...

3:24 AM Elizabeth Seckman 19 Comments

Funerals are big business.

And have been throughout history.

The record for costliest funeral ever is held by...drum roll...Alexander the Great in the 300's BC. His was a gala event ringing up to a whopping $670 million (adjusted to our AD level) dollars!  Part of the high cost was the need for special road construction to accommodate the jewel encrusted hearse that was so heavy it had to be pulled by 64 horses.

Then as time passed...the shrine, the lavish tomb of Alexander, was lost.

How exactly does an entire mausoleum with such a famous corpse just get lost?

And Alexander's wasn't the last to get lost. There was another tomb, the tomb of a king with billions of faithful followers, that didn't just get lost over time...it was never marked.

And his burial was far from impressive. There was no official procession, no lush robe to bury him in. But that's not surprising considering in life, this king's crown was made of thorns, his throne was a wooden cross, and his tomb was never his own...it was borrowed from a friend. He was laid to rest, not with fanfare and grand expense, but with loving care.

This man with his pauper's burial never had a shrine; never had a marker to be lost. Historians aren't even sure where the tomb might have been.

But for him, it doesn't matter. For this king, death was not the grand finale. The tomb doesn't matter, because he isn't there. He and his believers are yucking it up in Heaven. Dying was nothing more than a necessary step up the stairway.

Because with Christ, it's never good bye~ it's more like Bon Voyage.

Happy Holy Week :)