Last Sunday, Bishop Farr, our United Methodist bishop here in Missouri, preached at all of our services. And one of his illustrations has stuck with me all week. He talked about boats and the wakes they leave behind. 

If you were here, you heard him talk about how much he loves the water. He loves it so much that he even built a pond at his new house. Turns out, we have that in common. Well, the love of water anyway. I haven’t convinced my wife, Rikki, that we need a pond in our backyard. Yet.

I grew up waterskiing. Some of my favorite memories are being out on the lake, cutting back and forth across the water, and trying to get as much air as possible jumping the wake behind the boat. So when Bishop Farr started talking about wakes, he had my attention.

Every boat leaves a wake. And every one of us does too. The way we live, the people we love, the decisions we make. All of it leaves something behind. The question is what kind of wake we’re leaving.

I’ve been thinking about that this week, especially because of what we’re talking about this coming Sunday. We’re starting a new series called Life After Death. And I’ll confess something…this has been one of the harder sermons I’ve worked on in a while. I’ve spent hours reading, studying, writing, rewriting, and trying to figure out how to talk about something that is both incredibly important and incredibly complicated.

At one point, I was complaining to Rikki about how difficult it was. She laughed and said, “Well, you’re talking about death. And death is hard. It’s not supposed to be easy.” Fair point.

The truth is, most of us have questions about death. What happens when we die? Will we see the people we love again? What’s heaven actually like?  And for all the things Christians have said about these questions over the years, I wonder how many of us have actually spent much time exploring what the Bible teaches.

That’s what we’re going to do over the next three weeks. Not because I have all the answers (I certainly don’t), but because I believe there’s real hope when we wrestle with these questions together.

I hope you’ll make plans to join us Sunday, and maybe bring someone with you. Whether you’ve spent your whole life in church or you’re still figuring out what you believe, I think these next three weeks will be worth being part of.

See you Sunday!

Matt