Playing To The Wrong Crowd

I have a recurring daydream that happens more often than I'd care to admit. It begins with my sudden death, but I don't focus much on that. I zero in on the funeral.

Crowds of people come, of course. Some famous, some not. Many tears are wept and all present remember me as a truly great person taken too soon.

Etc. etc. etc. Yada, yada, yada.

You get the idea. I suppose most of us nurse secret vanities like these from time to time, though I perhaps am more guilty than most on this count.

When these thoughts have run their course and I return to reality, I am struck by the contrast between what I'm doing and what I see in Hebrews.

Hebrews 12:1 (abridged)
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses... let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us...

Who are these witnesses? The author lists a few of them in chapter 11.

They are dead.

Yes, Hebrews encourages us to put on a good show for the dead, but my funeral fantasies focus on the living. So why do I do that? The answer is pretty obvious. The living can be fooled. The departed cannot.

The truth is? I'm selfish. Self-loving. Petty. Greedy. Lustful. Revenge-loving. You name it. I know all these things to be true.

My funeral fantasy is therefore like the great finale of a grand deception put on for people who don't know the real me.

Hebrews 12, in contrast, reminds me to run my earthly race well in the presence of heavenly witnesses who do. God himself is among them.

Forget the funeral deception, Pilgrim. Focus on the heavenly reception.