Shrouds have no Pockets!

What a trite and obvious remark! The first time I heard it was when I passed on to a homely woman something for which I had no further use. It was a way of expressing her satisfaction at receiving something useful to her, remarking, “Some folk can never let go of anything they have. I once heard a sermon of which the text was, ‘Shrouds have no pockets.’”

We both gave a laugh at the triteness of the utterance, but, as I pondered it, I wondered what lesson the old-time servant of Christ had enforced from what some might regard as a platitude. There was no means of ascertaining this point, so fancy began to weave a little homily to myself based on the simple words, “Shrouds have no pockets.”

First I reflected, apart from the blessed hope of the Lord’s return, we are all safe to wear a shroud eventually. It is the common lot of man. Shrouds may differ in quality, but broadly speaking all who wear a shroud are on a dead level. All that has distinguished mankind previous to death has vanished by the time they wear a shroud. Most of what man has lived for and toiled for has vanished when he dons a shroud.

A man may have signally outshone his fellows, or may have fallen behind in life’s race, but from the point of view of a shroud what does it matter? Caesar and “The Unknown Warrior” must both have donned shrouds, but neither carried away with him the fruits of his victory.

So it is with other less distinguished characters. Man toils, hopes for some tangible result from his life’s work, only to find at the finish that he can carry nothing with him — “shrouds have no pockets.” As Job wails, “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither” (Job 1:21).

I address myself now more specially to those who are God’s people, who have had vouchsafed to them more light than had the saintly patriarch, Job, and more light than has the ordinary worldling. What about us, Christians? Are we spending our lives as though shrouds had pockets? “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth . . . but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven,” speaks the Lord to His disciples (Matthew 6:19,20).

Treasures need not necessarily be in cash, or even in kind. The world boasts many sorts of treasure—fame, prestige, culture, ease, position and the like. The acid test to the treasure we may be accumulating lies in the answer to the enquiry, “Will it survive death?”

What treasure will survive death? What of intrinsic value shall we be allowed to carry with us of all our possessions? One only, OUR CHRISTIAN CHARACTER, that which has been worked in the heart of each one between the moment of his conversion and of his dissolution, that of which the Apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 4:19, “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” Each redeemed soul will surely bear some likeness to Christ, worked out by the Holy Spirit, and this Christ-image embryonic or developed, will be the one treasure, which we shall retain even through death.

Why then strive unduly to accumulate those treasures, which we must needs lose, while being unmindful of the one treasure that matters. If it has become the habit of our lives to put first things first, to value God’s interests in this world before our personal gain, wishful only to spend and be spent, we shall have no reason to regret that shrouds have no pockets.

E.M.P.