You know, one of the most difficult and surreal things to do in ministry is to lead a funeral

and then eventually a graveside service. It's incredibly meaningful but tremendously difficult

because how do you summarize a life? How do you speak into every single moment that built up into this life?

How do you speak into the joys of their childhood and the difficulties as they entered into adulthood?

How do you speak to the way in which they loved their spouse decade after decade?

How do you speak to the fact that they made a tremendous impact on their kids? How do you speak to and summarize a life?

And as you stand there with the family and their friends, it's just this weight of I can't

possibly summarize everything they did in this life.

And then if you've ever been at a funeral, I know that the

funerals that I have been to of my family members, I just remember looking at that casket thinking,

it can't end like this. Like all of our love for each other, all of the life that they lived.

And it's just over.

Like if you've been there before,

if you've been to a funeral before,

if you've been to a graveside service,

as you watch the body get lowered into the ground,

there's just something in your soul knowing

it can't end like this.

Like this should not be the end.

You know, likely all of us have experienced something like that, and this is exactly what

Jesus' friends and followers and family were experiencing on this day nearly 2,000 years ago.

As they watched him suffer, bleed, and die, their thought was surely, it can't end like this.

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