I just buried my father yesterday. Well, not literally, since the service was held in a chapel at the cemetery, but my family and I said goodbye to him in a traditional Christian service. Because he was a combat veteran Marine Corps sergeant major, he received also very impressive military honors at graveside.

It was quite nice. Although he had passed rather quickly, and completely unexpectedly, he had lived a long and full life. That sounds cliché, but during his 84 years he had a successful career in the Corps, enjoyed a long and peaceful retirement, was blessed with a loving and faithful wife, and found great joy in his three children, nine grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren.

Best of all, though, after what some would call a rather misspent youth, he became a good man . . . and ended his days with faith in Christ and with virtues such as repentance, forgiveness and charity evident in his life.

As the day of the funeral was approaching, I recalled one of Jesus’ conversations with several prospective disciples.

As they were going along the road, someone said to [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another [Jesus] said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:57-60, ESV).

To some, Jesus’ words here sound harsh. However, the Messiah was not encouraging people to cease honoring their parents. After all, that would be in direct disobedience to the Commandments God delivered to us through Moses. No, Jesus affirmed our call to respect and care for our parents. What he was condemning was the excuses we make to delay accepting his invitation to follow him.

While we might offer a truly important reason for our procrastination, we often push back the spiritual “season” of our life with far more lame reasoning. “I’ll settle down after I get married, but right now I just need some time to “enjoy” life.” or “I’ll start going to church once I have kids and they can benefit from it.”

On Sundays we rarely think twice about disobeying another of the Commandments by ignoring the Sabbath and not preserving it’s holiness. Years ago Keith Green wrote a song “Asleep in the Light,” which featured the convicting lyrics:

How can you be so dead

When you’ve been so well fed

Jesus rose from the grave

And you, you can’t even get out of bed.

Most of us live long enough to suffer the loss of a parent. It’s something, perhaps, that you don’t really understand until you experience it yourself. Even then it’s difficult to console others by saying we’ve shared their loss. After all, every relationship is unique, and each human being processes grief in a unique manner.

C.S. Lewis knew well what it was like to lose his parents. His beloved mother died when he was quite young. In Surprised by Joy, he describes the pain. With my mother’s death all settled happiness, all that was tranquil and reliable, disappeared from my life. There was to be much fun, many pleasures, many stabs of Joy; but no more of the old security. It was sea and islands now; the great continent had sunk like Atlantis.

Alas, Lewis does not describe his father’s passing in his too-brief autobiography. What he does say, reminds me of my own father’s vast reservoir of humor and encouragement as his health waned. Lewis simply writes: “My father’s death, with all the fortitude (even playfulness) which he displayed in his last illness, does not really come into the story I am telling.”

Many of you who have lost your parents can empathize with me, and with the journey I am facing as I adjust to life without either of my parents. Because I loved them, I miss them. And the love makes the pain worth it. Besides, as Paul reminded young Christians in his first letter to the Church in Thessalonica, we “do not grieve as other do who have no hope.” Our hope is secure, resting in the very One who said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”