When The Righteous Perish

 

"If Heaven" by Andy Griggs

If Heaven was an hour, it would be twilight
When the fireflies start their dancing on the lawn
And suppers on the stove and mommas are laughing
And everybody's working day is done

If Heaven was a town it would be my town
On a summer day in 1985
And everything I wanted was out there waiting
And everyone I loved was still alive

  Don't cry a tear for me now baby
There comes a time we all must say goodbye
And if that's what heavens made of
You know what, I ain't afraid to die

If Heaven was a pie it would be cherry
Cool and sweet and heavy on the tongue
And just one bite would satisfy your hunger
There would always be enough for everyone

If Heaven was a train it sure would be a fast one
To take this weary traveler round the bend
And if heaven was a tear it'd be my last one
And you'd be in my arms again

Don't cry a tear for me now baby
There comes a time we all must say goodbye
And if that's what heavens made of
You know what I ain't afraid to die"


"The righteous one perishes,
    But no one takes it to heart.
Godly men are taken away,
    But no one discerns
        That the righteous man is taken from evil."
The Prophet Isaiah Chapter 57 Verse 1 

This Article is Dedicated to Brother Tim West, 
A Scholar and a Gentleman and a Peaceful Warrior.

The verse above means a lot to me as it has given me a lot of clarity on a mystery that has never left my mind far since youth. 
The mystery of "Why do the Righteous Perish while the Evil Remain?


Isaiah 57:1, This is the verse I used to preach at the funeral of the woman who took me in as a homeless teenager when my own Mother died. Her name was Nancy and her son was Brandon. My Dad had become too violent of a drunk to be near after the one person who could calm the Hulk was gone so I moved in with Brandon who was my friend since Elementary School. Nancy had made a hospital bed promise to my Mom that she would watch out for me as best she could. My brother had a similar shelter in his friend named Mark from his class in elementary school as his Mother, Francis, made a similar death bed Covenant with my Mother.  Both Nancy and Francis were married to alcoholics themselves so it was an uneasy roof over our heads but it was a roof.

Being a teenager under such circumstances when the teenage world is such a carnival of questions and emotions already really tested and in many ways, broke my faith. My 8th Grade Public School Teacher gave me a Student Bible a few months before the funeral and I read it cover to cover until it literally fell apart. I think my Mom needed to see that as a reassurance that I would be okay spiritually after she was gone. Her Pastor was Brother Tim West of Hornsby Baptist. The town was too small for traffic lights much less full time preacher salaries so he also drove our school bus to make ends meet which was a great comfort to and from a broken home every day. 
After hearing that I had taught myself the Greek Alphabet from old encyclopedias in study hall he gave me a Greek-English Interlinear New Testament and Greek Grammar Book and a Lexicon in 8th Grade. That Greek Grammar Book intimidated me in ways that you can't even imagine. He also let me get behind the pulpit to speak after a Youth Trip someone sponsored me for and the adults in the congregations were crying during my "sermon". I seemed to be well on the path to Seminary at Union University (which was a Baptist Seminary an hour away in the city of Jackson).

That question though, it ate at me, it drove me mad, it nearly killed me both physically and spiritually. "Why do the Righteous (a.k.a. people like my Mother who are bringing light and life to the world) perish but those who do wickedly get to remain?"
From Junior High to years after I left the Air Force it was the brick wall between me and God. If you're a loving God and such, WHY are you forcing us all to suffer under evil while you remove the only people that are gently lighting up the dark days? I don't remember the exact day or even the month or year but one day I came across this verse and it grabbed my soul and shook that ghost loose after close to twenty years. 

"The righteous one perishes,
    But no one takes it to heart.
Godly men are taken away,
    But no one discerns
        That the righteous man is taken from evil."

"The righteous one", 
The good people lighting up the darkness, 
"Perishes".
Is taken from the Earth and those that love them. 
 "But no one takes it to Heart"
No understands the larger Heavenly Perspective 
But only their lower Earthly Mindset. 
 "That the Righteous Man is taken from Evil"
The good people are taken from the World as an 
Act of Mercy for them.

If they stayed among us longer there were coming pains, illnesses, disappointments and more tragedy awaiting their family and nation which would break their hearts. They had their fill of the pain of a fallen world and were going to a release from it...
 This wasn't punishment, this was MERCY.  
At least on the ones who passed. In our modern minds we may best explain this may be a college athlete who dies instantaneously in a car accident instead of spending three decades in a wheelchair. It could also be the man who suffers a few months of cancer in a final refining, or as informed opportunity to get his house and ministry in order before he passes. It could be the Mother who goes to her rest before witnessing the addiction of a son or the abandonment of a daughter by her new husband. 
It could also be an answer to the prayers of the Righteous. Some pray to be martyrs so that their death gives courage to the other saints in their hostile nation. Others pray for honorable deaths as heroes instead of as old men laying on nursing home beds. There are still others who simply wanted to go to rest doing what they love.  Sometimes they have simply fulfilled their purpose early because they were Kingdom Busy and there is no justice in making them miss the fullness of that Kingdom anymore by making them remain among fallen man on fallen Earth. 

In the Ancient World they referred to the death of a King as "sleeping with his fathers" and for the common man, "resting in Abraham's Bosom". Our grandparents perhaps still thought in such terms as their view of passing was going to reconnect with long passed relatives. The Kingdom was more about returning to the larger Family of Faith than it was about an end to individual suffering or about individual comfort. The eyes of the people of that era were more noble than ours. They looked for the prosperity of their blood family and their village and their nation and their faith family while we are often unable to see past our own noses. 

No one thought about the welfare of the Nation more than the kings of the time. There were many good kings in the Books of 1st and 2nd Kings and 1st and 2nd Chronicles who died young. There were also many evil kings who lived a long time. This was a mystery to me for years until I saw that often the younger king would pass so his eyes did not see the judgement accumulated about to fall like a shadow over the nation that he loved. This principle could be applied to many veterans and patriots who love this nation enough to suddenly take a bullet and to choose to sleep on sandbags for it, a persistent sacrifice.  How would our grandfather's hearts break after they invaded Germany to free that nation of tyrants only to see their grandchildren usher in tyranny with thunderous applause on the streets at home? 

Then we have evil kings and evil men growing old on their beds with their willingness to follow the Yetzer HaRa (Evil Inclination) strong as it ever was despite their fragile bodies.  Sometimes they even grow old with wives and houses and grandchildren to the applause and respect of the world. There were many Nazi Officers who died in the suburbs of Alabama after working for NASA's Project Paperclip (example: Dr. Werner Von Braun who hosted Disney's Children's Science Program "My Friend The Atom") and many others who died wealthy and healthy in Argentina after open arms from that government.  What are we to make of them? 

We begin by looking at the fanatical commitment they had to a political movement that shamefully fell in front of their very eyes and was later a curse and by-word in the mouths of the very citizens who had ushered it in. As well as the death of their hero not on a battlefield but in a bunker by his own pistol, removing any doubt concerning his cowardice that might have remained. The Germans even have a word for it, the "Untergang" (Downfall). They even made it a very popular historical drama by the same name and another called "Gegen Die Wand" (Against The Wall). After all of that effort and sacrifice, the hero of the wicked is most known of chickening out at the last moment and becoming a traitor and deserter to all who worshipped him. Their sacrifice was in vain.

If these men were that set on evil then they would continue to be evil in the decades that followed. Just as God spoke of the Canaanites as needing to "fill their cup with iniquity" before they could be justly judged by the sword of the Israelites, these men would fill their cups with iniquity to receive an ever more severe judgement later. God hardened the heart of the Exodus Pharoah to justify unleashing a greater and more public and famous justice on him later as well. 3,000 years after the events of Passover this Pharoah dwells in a place of shame in History as the one who drowned his nation's whole army chasing slaves. 
In the minds of the Pharoahs your place in the afterlife was determined by those on Earth remembering your name in a positive light. This is why they would "blot out the name" of their enemies on statues and pyramids. Being forgotten would make them weak and unable to defend themselves in the world to come and therefore open to oppression, likely slaves to the monsters in the underworld. 
God could have simply given Pharoah a heartattack the day after he drowned the Hebrew Babies offering them to his "god" of wealth and comfort, the Nile River (like P.P. does today in it's temples). But instead, God blotted out his name and made it a curse among the peoples for the rest of human History. Worst than being forgotten for a leader is to be eternally shamed even by nations not yet birthed. Worst than that is to have millions of the descendants of those slaves gather for dinner every single year all over the world recalling how you drowned chasing their unarmed ancestors. The people who lost their children in the Nile though must have wondered why is was that Pharoah was getting to live on past their children. 

 So it is with other Pharoahs who may not have the eye liner but they have the malice in their eyes nonetheless and are filling their cup with iniquity for later.

 There are to other classes of people who may walk in darkness but who live long lives. There may be cases of the enemy not opposing people with sickness and such because he still has some usage left before he tosses them away. These case though are those not serving God but that God still gives breathe to for many years more. 

Some are those whom someone walking with God had loved deeply and their prayers have extended the Grace Period for this person to repent. I believe this was the case with my Mom passing 6 years before my Dad. Her passing was what finally broke him and answered her prayers for his salvation, as he was saved in a Baptist Church 3 weeks before he died of cancer in the hospital. 

There are also those that God Himself has kept in reserve for a higher purpose much later in life when they are finally willing. Perhaps a millionaire who changes his will to give all of his money to charity at the midnight hour or the old gangbanger who has decided to give his testimony to every other inmate on death row as a last opportunity for their salvation. Since David prayed for justice on his enemies, we have to wonder how many early Christians prayed Saul of Tarsus would take a hard fall off his donkey and end up with a concussion so the persecution would stop?

Most often though, we are like King David and the Prophets in that we must admit we don't know the reasons why and we will never know this side of the Kingdom.
The Creator (YHVH) is the perfect blend of both Justice and Mercy.

 We rely on that to help us sleep at night when we don't understand why the "Righteous Perish" while those who walk in darkness live on.

The Mourner's Prayer/Jewish Mourner's Kaddish
From www.MyJewishLearning.com

"Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.
May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days,
and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon;
and say, Amen.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,
adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He,
beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that
are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.
May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.
He who creates peace in His celestial heights,
may He create peace for us and for all Israel;
and say, Amen."

The prayer spoken by the entire community 
to mourn those who pass and look forward 
to sharing a resurrected life with them.
      When the passing first occurs the family 
"Sits Shiva" (Sits 7) for seven days 
and they do not cook or clean, 
they simply mourn and the community takes 
care of all of their needs.

A candle, called a "Yahrzeit/Year's Time) is also lit on 
the yearly anniversary of the death to 
remember the life of those who passed. 
Sometimes tradition and community are the balm 
that heals the wounds the individual cannot bear to dress
on their own or in their solitude. 
May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

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