For Naziwa Harriet

As we gather together mourning our loss at the death of Naziwa Harriet we need to keep death in the proper perspective. For Christians that perspective is love not fear.

1Corithians 13:4-11 tell us that love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection come the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways be hind me. Now we see but a poor reflection in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then we shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Because of God's love for us through Jesus Christ we have courage to see the future that is unseen and strength to face the most difficult painful troubles, like the death of Harriet. Prophecy reveals God's plan for us but when we fully receive God's love at death, we need prophecy no longer. We enter into His final plan. Our earthly knowledge becomes inadequate when we are in His presence. All our imperfections disappear and we now see and know all the truth of God that we could not grasp before.

As a child, like Harriet, we try to understand life through imperfect hearts and minds. But on becoming a man, Paul said the childish things are behind him. When do we become spiritual adults? Are we there yet? Do we see clearly? Not yet! We only see dimly like a dull mirror, in the half light of the fading world. Fading because of the sin that has taken so much of our lives.

But when we are made perfect, with our sin nature removed at death, then we will know and understand the pain and sorrows that we faced on Earth, God's eternal purpose and plan. For now we are still kids but Harriet is now a spiritual adult in the presence of Jesus Christ. She knows the very things we long for through faith.

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." We have faith that Jesus is the Savior of men, hope that the call to glory will one day be sounded for us, and love for each other that builds us up together in Christ.

1Corinthians 15:32 "If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead in Christ are not raised, "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die." If we go through this life with the only purpose of this life being to please ourselves then we should just get drunk and eat ourselves to death. But that doesn't work! The glutton can never get enough food nor the drunkard enough beer! So where do we find our hope? In the Love of Jesus Christ!

1Corinthians 15:54-55 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying is that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?" By knowing the love of God through Jesus Christ, Naziwa has not been stung or defeated by death. She has conquered death. That is how she could live such a joyful life even with all her health problems. She smiled through the most severe pain because she knew that death was not a sting but a hoped for release into the new light and knowledge of God.

If you have been stung by the death of our little sister, turn to Christ! There is no fear in Him! Only Faith, Hope and Love.