These manifestations of disappearing and reappearing [the appearances by Jesus after Easter] were designed to emphasize that, while He seemed to be gone, He was not, but is ever near to us. Then comes the astonishing statement that we shall know the same aliveness after the experience called death. “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19). The mere fact that we can no longer see our loved ones in the flesh does not at all mean that they are not alive. They still live in this dynamic, mysterious universe, even as we, too, shall live forever.
The day I received the news that my mother had died, I went to Marble Collegiate Church and sat in the pulpit. I did that because she had always told me, “Whenever you are in that pulpit I will be with you.” I wanted to feel her presence.
Then, I went into my study. On the table lies a Bible. It lay there that morning, and it has been there ever since. It is old and tattered now, but that Bible will remain there as long as I am connected with the church, and then I will take it with me wherever I may go. I never give a sermon that I do not, first, put my hand on that Bible.
On that morning of her physical death, I placed my hand on the Bible, in an instinctive desire for comfort, and stood looking out toward Fifth Avenue, when all of a sudden, I distinctly felt two cupped hands, soft as eiderdown, resting gently on my head. And I had a feeling of inexpressible joy.
I have always had a questioning mind and, even then, I began to deal factually with this experience, reasoning that it was hallucination due to grief. But I did not believe my own attempt to reason it away. Then the idea dawned that I should lift my thinking to the spiritual level and realize that in this dynamic universe, what we call death is but the change in form of deathless spirit. From that moment, I never doubted my mother’s spiritual aliveness.
I once wrote of this incident in a magazine article, and received scores of letters from people who told of a like experience. One physician wrote: “I was attending a man in his last illness. Suddenly, a look came over his face that can only be described as out of this world in its beauty. He began to call by name his mother, father, brother, sister. Then he said, ‘Why, Frank, I didn’t know you were there.’ And, closing his eyes, his spirit took flight. “The daughter of the man,” the doctor continued, “told me that mother and father, brother and sister, had been dead for years. But about his mentioning Frank, she could not understand. Frank was not dead.
“An hour later came the message that Frank, a cousin, had been killed in an accident some hours before.”
They live and they will live forever as you will, also, in this dynamic universe. The conviction that this is true first gripped me years ago, in a little country cemetery in Ohio. I was standing by my father’s side as the body of my beloved grandmother was lowered into the grave. I felt sorry for him that day, for he was sad and so was I. I can see the preacher even yet, standing by the grave and, in memory, hear the strong, sure tone of his voice as he repeated those immortal words, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
“And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). Suddenly, I had one of those flashing experiences of intuitive perception and instantly, deep in my heart, knew that immortality is a true belief.
A while ago, on a sun-kissed day, I came to the place where those words were first spoken. We rounded a turn in the road that winds up to Jerusalem, and there, on the shoulder of the Mount of Olives, was the village of Bethany, just as it appeared in every Biblical picture book. We came to the grave where once rested the body of Lazarus and descended to the spot from which he came forth. Later, emerging into the brilliant daylight, we stood by the open tomb and read aloud the great words. The place where we were standing must have been almost the exact spot where Jesus made that immortal statement to those grieving people.
You never know when a great experience is going to come. When least expected, an unforgettable moment flashes across your life with inexpressible meaning. It is difficult to recall, without deep emotion, the feeling of absolute certainty that burned into my mind that the words spoken there nearly twenty centuries ago are absolutely true. I turned to my wife and said, “Think of all the grieving millions of people down the centuries who have been comforted by the words that were spoken here.”