Punishment is the bad thing that happens when you do wrong.  It can come by the hand of fellow humans or by the hand of God.  It can also be self-inflicted.  No matter how it comes, it hurts.  The hurt can often bring resentment or revenge.  But can punishment ever be good?

Our justice system is designed to make punishment a deterrent — that is, if you’re punished for a crime, then you are less likely to do it again.  Unfortunately, most criminals in our jails are repeat offenders.  And this doesn’t even count for the number of crimes they got away with.  So the punishment merely takes them out of society for awhile until they have served their time or until they convince parole boards to release them early.

Before I go any further, let me say that I am not aware of anything that I have done that should put me in prison.  So why should I be punished?  Because I believe that God’s punishment is just and is used by him to discipline us.  It certainly can include punishment by others, but God is the Master Planner.

It is natural for a person to not want to do wrong in order to avoid punishment, especially if he or she has felt the sting of punishment.  But God doesn’t want that for us.  He punishes us to get our attention. It is his desire for us to be able to recognize where we have gone wrong, so that we may set it right. And not only are we to set it right, we must condition ourselves to not repeat it — not so as to avoid punishment, but to consciously want to do the right thing — because we are his children and want to be like him.

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A lot of people lay claim to the fact that they are saved; that is, they are born-again believers in Jesus Christ.  What are they saved from?  ”The penalty of sin” would be the usual answer.  What’s the penalty? Death.  But we all die.  Yes, but we need to be saved from eternal death in Hell.

How do we get saved?  By being born again.  How are we born again?  By believing that Jesus died to save us from our sins.  And on it goes.

Jesus died to save me from me.  You see, I love myself too much.  You might not know it if you meet me.  But I’m sure you can think of someone who appears to love themselves too much.  They’re not the dangerous ones; they wear it on their sleeves, so to speak.  No, it’s those of us who seem to lead a pious life, but, in fact, are as fickle as a mood ring — we are the ones who bring confusion to those who really know us.

I love things that God doesn’t love, like always being right, comparing my Christian walk to others who don’t seem to quite measure up or priding myself in my accomplishments and possessions, while not always admitting to it (or realizing that it is so).  God doesn’t want these things for me.  Neither does Jesus, who was, and is, my mentor.  I’m called to recognize things that are not worth loving.

Jesus died because he knew it was in God’s plan, the culmination of his perfect justice.  God loved me so much that he was willing when the Son said, “Let me go talk to them Father, that they might truly know you.” (I know.  It’s not in the Bible, but it could happen.)

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On June 2, 1897 Mark Twain wrote, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Benjamin Franklin said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

The Bible says, “Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement.”

No matter where we look death is in the air.  Many people have experienced the death of someone close to them.  The rest of mankind are reminded of death in the news or when passing by an accident or cemetery. With death facing us on all sides, one would wonder why we fear it so.  Perhaps it can be summed up in the fact that, while we think we know, or we hope we know, what really happens after death, we just don’t know.

My wife and I are volunteers at the hospice center of our local hospital.  Hospice is the palliative care of patients who have been given less than six months to live.  Lois provides patient care and maintains the kitchen at the Hospice House, and I work on the computer to set up bereavement care.  This particular hospice program extends 12 months of follow-up care after the death of a loved one.

By the time they are brought into the facility, most patients are at a point where they are accepting of their upcoming passage from this life.  In our training we were told of many interesting encounters where the patient would see someone who wasn’t in the room just before their death.  Lois witnessed this with my own father when she was at his bedside when he died (I was working in another state at the time).  The clinical explanation is that the neurotransmitters are shutting down, and the brain is preparing us for the end.  But you couldn’t sell that line to most hospice nurses.

We all witness death as it is.

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