yes, I recently experienced just such a weekend and no, I am not reliving my college days. (full disclosure, being an introvert and being very studious by nature, my college days were not marked by partying anyway – reliving my college days would warrant more time in the library) Ok, with that out of the way, let me tell you about the three “parties” or celebrations that I attended all within one weekend.

It started with a funeral. That’s right, I said funeral. This was a celebration of life. We celebrated the life of a dear friend whose life was taken too soon – well that’s the human perspective on her death. Recently, she had truly come into her own, as she used her many talents and abilities to serve God and to serve other people. She had revamped our church’s food co-op program and was giving cooking classes to help families learn to eat healthy, nutritious meals. But viewed from God’s eternal perspective, our human mourning was filled with rejoicing for our friend as we celebrated the life she had lived here and the life she is now living with her Savior in eternity. God’s timing is always perfect – so I will trust Him and celebrate that my friend is now with Him, even though we miss her not being with us. We were gathered to celebrate our friend’s new life in a place described in this way –

“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:3-4)

How could I not be happy for my friend knowing this is her reality now? Indeed, this is the promise for you, dear readers and for me and for anyone who chooses to accept Jesus’s invitation to believe in Him. Jesus said –

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me. In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

That promise is a reason to celebrate and celebrate our friend’s life we did. We rejoiced over her earthly life with us and we rejoiced over the life she is living now in the place God had prepared already, especially for her. We cried, we laughed, we remembered, we told stories, we prayed, we shared a meal together – it was a perfect party. We celebrated the promise of new, eternal life.

The next “party” was Sunday morning church service. This was a special day. We witnessed fifteen baptisms complete with a personal testimony from each person before they were immersed in the water in the very large washtub at the front of the sanctuary. That’s right – this church was built in the late 1800’s – there is no baptistry built into it. Each person’s personal story of redemption was a reason to rejoice, for us to celebrate along with them, the new life that has begun in each one since they met Jesus, much like what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus where he met Jesus. Saul received a new life, a new purpose and a new name (Paul) – he was totally transformed. So were the fifteen individuals whose baptism party I attended on Sunday morning. We rejoiced, we cried, we laughed, they told us their stories, we witnessed their daring obedience to the living God, we prayed. It was a perfect party. We celebrated the promise of new, eternal life.

Baptism is a symbol of the new life we have in Christ. Paul explained it this way in Romans, saying –

“Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. . . . Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.” (Romans 6:3-8)

Another translation says – “that we may walk in newness of life.” That’s what baptism celebrates – the gift and the promise of new life in Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it is explained this way –

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

New life – this is something worth celebrating most assuredly – which brings me to my third “party” of the weekend – a baby shower! I attended a baby shower later that day where we all celebrated the new life that is growing inside his mother’s womb even as we prepared to welcome him into this world by showering his parents with gifts intended for this new little person, who will soon make his entrance into our world. We rejoiced with the new parents, we laughed, we told stories, we prayed, we shared a meal together. It was a perfect party. We celebrated the promise of a new life.

“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13-16)

And so my weekend of “partying” came to an end. A funeral, baptisms and a baby shower – what do they all have in common? They are all celebrations of life, of eternal life, of new life. They are all celebrations of God’s promise of life both abundant and eternal.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

Come to think of it, these celebrations occurred in reverse order of how we experience them in our own lives. First, we are born physically, then reborn or born again spiritually, symbolized by baptism, then comes our physical death, which frees us to enter into our eternal life with Christ in heaven. Jesus explained it to Martha this way, saying –

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

At each of these “parties” we were celebrating the promise of new life – the funeral, the baptisms, the baby shower – all evidences of the new life we are given in Christ, from birth to death and beyond. Parties full of promise – eternal life, abundant life – always worth celebrating.

“but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

sincerely, Grace Day