Baha'i Goodbye
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Baha'i Goodbye
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Al's Preacher's Pen for Ap 30, '06Date: 4/27/2006"A BAHA'I GOODBYE"She was a beautiful Chinese woman from Singapore. She was 36 years old. She had been an Air Hostess for many years for Air New Zealand after completing her degree at the University of Canterbury. It was there that her future husband spotted the oriental beauty and persuaded her to marry him. Now, years later, she had been placed in an open basket-weave coffin with a scarlet lining decorated with golden stars and Chinese markings. Her lithe and lifeless body dressed in a funeral gown was adorned with many long-stemmed flowers placed there by mourners. She had succumbed to a rare form of cancer that is not uncommon in persons exposed to high altitude cosmic radiation. The funeral bier was placed on the floor of the Ba'hai temple. The little girl she mothered, Yasmine, appeared bewildered by the events. Sandra, the deceased's mother, 65, reclined on the floor near her daughter's serene face. The mother's copious weeping revealed a heart broken by her failed attempts to reach her daughter's heart with the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, Sandra had become a Christian after her daughter had left her parental home. Not only had she lost her beloved daughter, but also the last chance to introduce her to the conqueror of death, Jesus Christ, had been squandered. She had tried so very, very hard but barriers erected by her resistant daughter and others were impossible to penetrate. The curtain had been wrung down and only a fearful expectation of judgement now remained for the child for whom a mother's heart was shattered. We went at the funeral to comfort our beloved Sandra. The winding, often treacherously narrow, road running west from Auckland went through dense sub-tropical foliage and trees, often obscuring the sheer drops sweeping down into green valleys below. The terrain became more rural with cows and horses visible through breaks in the forest. As John Staiger's minivan laboured up a final steep farm road, many luxury car drivers were seen vying for a level place to park. >From there we walked down a leafy lane, across a picturesque wooden bridge, and on up a steep and winding path. Looking down, we observed a placid Tasman Sea and on the opposite side, the pagoda that housed the monks. Climbing on up towards the summit, we passed a statute of a Tibetan Buddha strategically placed near the pathway. The right hand of the lifeless idol was raised as though in greeting. Then the path continued upwards though a trellis into a tiny eight-sided temple. The walls of the compact temple (a little larger than my living room and dining room) were adorned with the signs of the Unitarian universalism of this eclectic religion. The Baha'i religion accepts 8 ways to "nirvana". On a table there was a diminutive golden Buddha idol with a candle burning before it. On another table near the foot of the coffin was another Buddha-image with 8 unlit candles. Behind that table sat a Baha'i nun clad in the maroon robes over a saffron-coloured vest. She was a young white woman with a North American accent. Her head was clean-shaven. In her hands was a Korean prayer-wheel which she rotated continuously "offering up prayers". Each spin is seen as sending a prayer skyward while the nun's lips silently moved continuously. On the walls of the temple were the images of the other religions which Baha'i finds acceptable. The Hindu religious sign was there. The six-pointed Star of David represented Judaism. The oft-seen crescent and star represented Islam. Yes, and believe it or not, there was a representative picture of "Jesus" hanging on the wall. Though many people gave eulogies of the deceased, they were all about her past life. There was a special chant by the Baha'i nun in an Asian sounding language. There was a Maori who gave an ethnic "prayer and send-off for the dead" in the Polynesian language. The European husband of the deceased stumbled through a 45-minute eulogy that would have befuddled most of us. As we left the proceedings, we were thankful that we are New Testament Christians. Our Christian funerals are celebrations not only of the life of the deceased, but also about the future and the hope that we have in Christ Jesus. "If a man die, shall he live again?" Job 14:14. Yes, indeed! "Jesus is the resurrection and the life", John 14:25. "He is the first fruits of them that sleep,"I Cor. 15:20. I don't want a "Baha'i Goodbye." I want a "Christian Reception" by my Lord. Which do you want? Love you all, Al |
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