"Hindustan for the Hindus, Pakistan for the Moslems, and Kabarstan for the Christians".

Now, this ominous sounding declaration is going to need some explanation if it is going to make any sense to you.

The word "Hindustan" is essentially a synonym for the subcontinent of India. "Pakistan" of course is the Islamic province that separated from India shortly after it's independence in 1948. Thus, the first part of the edict is fairly simple: keep India for the Hindus, and let the Moslems stay in Pakistan.

What, though, is "Kabarstan"? The word "Kabar", in one of the native Indian languages, means "grave" or "tomb". "Kabarstan", then, would be a "graveyard".

So, in other words, let the Hindus and Moslems remain in their assigned geographical locations - - but give the graveyard to Christians.

Though obviously designed to be a threat towards Christians, this slogan makes one major miscalculation: true Christians are not threatened by the graveyard.

Of course, that's easy enough for us to say, but is it really true? Do Christians really live without any fear of the grave? They certainly should, and I would like to investigate with you two reasons why they should.

The first reason is simple enough, but is too often overlooked: the graveyard is really the only appropriate place for the Christian.

What do I mean by this? A recurring theme in both the Gospels and the Epistles is that if one is to experience true, eternal life with God, there must first be the experience of death. This does not, of course, mean physical death, but rather an event that takes place within a person's soul.

Perhaps to best illustrate this we ought to look at Christ's discourse on discipleship (recorded in all three Synoptic Gospels). Drawing a very clear line in the sand, Jesus says that to be His disciple, one must first "deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me". To carry a cross in the first century meant that person's life was at an end. A person in that condition no longer had a will of his own. He had no rights. His plans and opinions no longer meant anything. His future was out of his control. In short, his life was over. Period.

In our day, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the "self". In every area of society, we hear such buzzwords as, "self worth", "self reliance", "self realization", "self fulfillment", and "self esteem". Human nature is born with a proclivity towards gratifying self. But Christians - the true disciples of Christ - must and will come to understand that our lives for our sake on this earth mean nothing. Live or die, we are the Lord's, for we "are not our own, but have been bought with a price". (I Corinthians 6:19, 20)

When we deny the ownership of our own lives in this way, we experience a death that is far deeper than the mere cessation of biological functions.

If anyone thinks that this sounds overly harsh, or perhaps unrealistic, I urge them to simply look at the Lord Jesus Himself. Did He vaunt His own (legitimate) self-worth? Absolutely not. Rather, God the Son "made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of a cross". (Philippians 2:7,8)

We can praise God, though, that this is not the end of the story. When one truly experiences this deepest of all deaths, it is then that he or she also experiences the second reason why physical death does not intimidate Christians: Death is not final. Indeed, death, both the inward death to self spoken of before and even physical death, is nothing more than a gateway to a deeper experience of life and fruitfulness.

Concerning spiritual life, Jesus says in John 12 that, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit".

For a seed to reproduce, it must die first. It's outer shell gets absorbed in the production of new life, and that new life has a completely different nature than the seed had originally. This is what the Lord is telling us. When a person relinquishes their rights to themselves, a completely new life is born within them. In turn, they are then able to truly bring forth fruit. Oh, sure, others may seem to be accomplishing more, but simple accomplishment is not the same as bringing forth fruit. Fruit has ongoing effects, for it brings life to others. It nourishes the hungry, revives the faint, and strengthens the weak.

This, my friends, is real living.

But even physical death is not a finality. Scriptures speak quite clearly of a time to come when these physical bodies we commit to the ground will once again be infused with life, and will rise again in a perfect and glorified state. To catch a glimpse of this wonderful fact, let's look again at the Lord Himself. After His morbid physical death, just three days later He rose again, with a life nobody can or will take away.

Later in the New Testament, while discussing the fact of the coming resurrection, Paul tells us that the resurrection of Christ functions not just as an historical event, but as a guarantee that one day those who belong to Him will rise again in like manner. His words include this most encouraging statement:

"The last enemy that will be destroyed is death". (I Corinthians 15:26)

Please don't get caught up in the idea that death is the last enemy, thinking that it is the strongest of all and therefore will be the most difficult to vanquish. That's not the case, and that's not what the passage says. Focus rather on the fact that death will be, forever and completely, destroyed.

Death is most certainly not final. Amen.

And so, again, the grave is not an intimidating concept to the Christian. In fact, we embrace the grave, for spiritually it is the means to greater fruitfulness, and physically we know that it will be defeated in the final resurrection. It is, quite simply, a necessary step towards the abundant life that God has designed for us both now and for eternity.

Allow me, please, to bring this discussion down to a more personal level. Are you intimidated by death? When you attend a funeral, or visit a cemetery, are you hit with a sense of foreboding, of depression, hopelessness, or fear?

Could this be because you have not yet "died" yourself? Going to church, reading the Bible, being a "good person", and yes even participating in ministry activities are not sufficient to bring you eternal life. It's an unavoidable reality of the spiritual realm: to live, and to be fruitful, you must first die. Resurrection only comes after crucifixion.

This death of which I speak need not be a long, morbid process. A simple, conscious transaction between yourself and your Maker in which you relinquish your rights to self-ownership, and surrender the control of your life to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, is all that is necessary. And, you need only do this once, (though the attitude of dying to self persists throughout the rest of one's life). When a man or woman comes to the Lord in this attitude of repentance, and receives the gracious gift of eternal life as purchased for us by the blood of Jesus Christ, He in turn promises that we are His forever. "If anyone is in Christ, he (or she) is a new creation: old things have passed away (they have died), behold, all things have become new!". (II Corinthians 5:17)

Kabarstan. It's not a threat. It's a blessing.

In His Service,

Stephen Tecklenberg
President