The great world leader, Winston Churchill, planned his own funeral service. The event took place in Saint Paul's Cathedral. Churchill personally selected many of the great hymns of the church to accompany the beautiful Anglican liturgy.
Hidden from view, two buglers were positioned high in the dome of the great cathedral. With the "amen" of the benediction, one bugler intoned the sound of "Taps." Those in attendance must have concluded that with "Taps" the service, like the great man's life, was over. However, the second bugler immediately began to blow "Reveille" - "It's time to get up. It's time to get up. It's time to get up in the morning."
Churchill's testimony to the world was his hope, that in the end, the final note will not be "Taps" but "Reveille."
This was the Apostle Paul's hope too. He wrote, "For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality."
In the end, it will not be failure and death, but victory and life in Christ Jesus! Amen!
• The Rev. Ken Haskins is pastor of First Christian Church in Carson City.