Matthew 8:21

And another of the disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. But Jesus saith unto him, Follow me; and leave the dead to bury their own dead.

The proposition set forth by the disciple mentioned here was not that his father was dead and that he desired to be excused to hold the funeral. Far from it. He was one of the group known as "wait a little" Pharisees who always proposed something else to do first. He meant that he was not free to be a disciple until after the death of his father but that he would be glad to follow Jesus after his father died.

In a rejoinder which seems harsh if not understood in its true meaning, Jesus allowed no delay, encouraged no procrastination, and commanded that those spiritually dead should be left to bury their own dead. Furthermore, even if Christ had demanded that the disciple miss the funeral of his own father, such an urgency is fully in accord with the utmost importance of immediate, final, irrevocable and constant adherence to Christ as one's Lord and Master, regardless of cost or inconvenience. After all, in Sir Walter Scott's stirring lines from "Lady of the Lake," Roderick summoned his warriors to a far less noble rendezvous: "Leave the bride at the altar, the corpse uninterred!"

Well did Jesus know that if this disciple returned home to the old ways, the old viewpoint, and the old habits, he would never more wish to follow his Lord. The admonition of Jesus, seen in this light, is therefore full of the utmost love and consideration for that unknown disciple's eternal welfare. Dr. Lotus Delta Coffman, president of the University of Minnesota until 1938, wrote many years ago in a syndicated column, "These words of Jesus, far from being unkind, were prompted by unbounded love and grounded in his infinite knowledge of what is best for man."