Barrows of Gwaenysgor

As I walked up Gwaenysgor overlooking the Welsh seaside town of Prestatyn on the Denbighshire coast, I found several barrows. These are ancient mounds inside which lay burials of presumably once important people. The views were spectacular, which seemed ironic as the dead can see nothing. Death is the end of sight, sound, smell and all the rest. Having departed from the body, one awaits God’s judgement in gloomy hades; contrary to Western spiritism and eastern ancestor worship, the dead cannot come back and say hello, much less express their disapproval or otherwise of current affairs. It is permitted for man to die once, and then face the judgement. Perhaps burying such noble folk in so prominent a place with wonderful views was the best they could hope for.

We Christians of humbler birth will warrant no such burial, but we have a knowledge of death and the afterlife, for the scriptures speak of the Lord Jesus conquering the former in order to procure for us the latter. This gives us a wonderful glimpse now, and an even better view when we get there. When our bodies and souls separate, it is not a hole in the ground in which we shall reside, nor even the gloomy Pit of the underworld, but the very presence of God in heaven, for the Blood has purchased our passage and secured our place. From there, the views are spectacular. 

But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1 Corinthians 2:9

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