Two More Bodies at Pompeii

Two new bodies have been found at Pompeii. Technically, I should have said two new cavities. 2000 years ago, ash from erupting Vesuvius covered the Roman town, smothering people whose remains decomposed, leaving behind their empty shapes in the hardening rock. Archaeologists fill the shapes with plaster or liquid chalk, and see the contorted forms of people from long ago.

The two men lay close by, sheltering, not far from a stable in which horses had been harnessed. One man had heavily worn vertebrae and wore a short tunic, leading scholars to conclude he was a slave. The other’s bones were better formed and he wore additional garments, suggesting he was the master. One was rich and relatively powerful, the other poor and powerless. Yet their fate was the same: smothered by toxic, heated ash. The master’s commands had no effect on the volcano; his wealth and status conferred no dying benefits. Proverbs 22:2 declares:

The rich and poor meet together: the LORD is the maker of them all.

Rich and poor have little in common on earth and seldom do they meet. In death, however, the poor man is stripped of his rags and the rich man his robes. Naked and exposed, we enter eternity, the only question of importance being our acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ. You may be financially secure, in charge of others, a person of consequence. But one day, you’ll be another body lying on the floor, just like everyone else.

Image by Wingrid1979 from Pixabay