Many might wonder about the title of this blog: Stone Angels & Iron Gates: accoutrement in waiting for His Return. So I thought I'd share a bit as to how I came to rely on the notion of "accoutrement" in waiting for His Return.
This is a recent photo of my sweetie Anne's grave. Anne is my second baby to be buried in this small children's cememtery near our home. I always love it when my camera catches the wind in her spinners cuz it so reminds me of of a sermon I heard once by Billy Graham. He was speaking on John chapter 3 and how we can't see the wind, & yet we know it's there. He spoke about how that's also true with the Holy Spirit, who Jesus says is like the wind going where ever He wants, and how it's the forceful yet invisible power of the Holy Spirit that rebirths our hearts so that we're able to know the True & Living God.
When I think of the word accoutrement I think of accessorizing. You know: fashion extras, trimmings. and decorations that make things look nice. One might also think of tools, gear or equipment that can make things endure or last better.
Well as we wait for His Return, many (if not most) of us will spend much of that time laying in wait under the sod. And thus, it is often customary to use various accessories (accoutrement) to make the graveside look better and last longer while we wait. Even the women, the morning after Jesus had been crucified & entombed, went with flowers & such to embellish his grave. We're even told that Jesus' friend Mary bumped into a guy at Jesus' tomb whom she thought was the gardener, and cemeteries to this day hire grounds keepers to maintain the flowers, trees & shrubs that are often planted as memorial endearments.
The Scriptures tell us that the "dead in Christ will raise first" so it would seem to me that the cemeteries need to be a place where we stay alert & watchful. In fact, it behooves us as Believers to make better investments in burial grounds that have all but been forgotten as the pagan practice of cremation take hold in our culture.
I personally believe that it's critically important that we plan & prepare, not just for they who may still be alive so as to be "caught up in the air", but especially for they who are already asleep in Christ, for it is THEY who are asleep in Christ who will respond first to the Archangel's Trumpet Call.
I know many who don't think any of the post mortem stuff matters. I've been given several lectures as to why I would bother wasting my time tending to the cemetery when my girls are in heaven. And it is true that their spirits are at rest in the arms of Jesus. But what many well-intended Believers forget is that their DNA is here, under the sod, waiting for His Return just like the rest of us wait.
We're told in Scripture that when The Trumpet Call of His Return sounds the graves will give forth their dead, and they who were asleep in Christ will be given their Resurrected bodies & be reunited with their spirits. Those "new" bodies are Resurrected & transformed from the DNA that rests beneath the sod. So yes, for Believers especially, it is important to tend the cemetery and they who lay in wait there.
And thus you see that stone angels and iron gates are merely a few of the more common accoutrement that humanity uses to make the graveyard prettier & better able to withstand the weather of time--
while we wait for His Return...
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