This story is really disturbing (I mean it!).

            John Scott Harrison was a successful farmer, businessman, and a member of Congress (1853-1857).  While serving in Congress as a Whig, he opposed the extension of slavery into the West.  His real distinction, however, is that he is the only man to be both son and father to a president.  Scott’s father was Old Tippecanoe, William Henry Harrison.  Scott’s son was President Benjamin Harrison.  But that’s not the disturbing part.

            When Scott Harrison died in 1878, he was given a tasteful and refined funeral service, and buried in Cincinnati, Ohio.  That very night grave robbers took his corpse and sold it to the Ohio Medical College, in Cincinnati for dissection.  One of his sons had business at the school, and, passing by a classroom, looked in and saw his father’s corpse dangling by a rope, being prepared by the medical students.  Of course, Scott Harrison was identified and reburied, but his family never recovered from the shock.*

            The fate of Scott Harrison’s body reminds me of the fate of the Rich man’s soul in Luke 16.  As a rich man, with a family, he would have received a lavish burial with paid mourners, and glowing eulogies.  But while his family thinks of him as secure and well placed in a dignified tomb, he lifts up his eyes and finds himself in hell.  Shocked, desperate, worried about those he left behind, no relief or comfort is given to him – only torment and more torment today, tomorrow and forever.

            The poor man he ignored day after day at his gate, by contrast, lifts his eyes to find his suffering ended and eternal comfort given to him.  The reversal of their fortunes is so complete that in Death it is the poor man whose name we know – Lazarus – while the rich man is an anonymous soul in hell.  We are not told of Lazarus’ happy surprise at finding himself suddenly in such absolute bliss, but we do not doubt such feelings overwhelmed him.

            Jesus tells us in Matthew 25 that, regardless of our sentence, we will all be surprised on judgment day.  When the lost are condemned for not feeding, clothing, visiting, etc…Jesus, they will ask in desperate shock at their condemnation, “Lord, when did we see you hungry, naked, sick…?!”  When the saved are welcomed into bliss for taking care of Jesus, they will ask the same question, with the same intense surprise.

            When I was a kid, and thinking about judgment day a lot, I was surprised at their surprise in Matthew 25.  The text says he parts the sheep from the goats and puts the lost on the left, the saved on the right.  My only question was: Is that Jesus’ right, or our right when we face Him? My question now is: If we are supposed to know we have eternal life (I John 5.13), why will we be shocked to receive it?

            I think I know the answer to both questions.  Matthew 25.34 says that the sheep will be on Jesus’ right.  Revelation 20.11-15 says that the books will be opened and that we will be judged out of those books.  How could any of us, we who spend our days wrapped in the blankets of obliviousness and self-justification, when faced with the harsh realities of the life we have lived, NOT be stunned to hear him say “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter in to the joys prepared for you before the foundation of the world.”

            But, by the grace of God, by the blood of Jesus Christ, those of us who have received that blood will, indeed, hear just that.

            Shocking.                                                        

 *From Star Spangled Men, by Nathan Miller, Simon&Schuster, 1998, p.19 (footnote).  Miller cites as reference for this macabre story DeGregorio’s The Complete Book of Presidents, p139.