We don’t want to talk about it. We avoid it at all costs, yet it keeps invading our life and peace. Death — It’s that horrible reality that won’t let us alone to enjoy our days in blissful ignorance.
No, death is what makes a child grow up faster than need be.
Death is what leads an otherwise intelligent person to take “health” treatments, get plastic surgery or take untold numbers of supplements.
It’s what leads others to dread the night, not want to leave a loved one’s side, or escape entirely.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter to a friend: “Death reveals that the world is not as it should be but that it stands in need of redemption.“*
That’s it. We can try to hide from it, ignore it, or escape it, but death is the one thing that none can deny or explain. It happens to rich and poor alike, good and bad. The world has no solution for being saved from its grasp.
God does. Christ conquered death. Now, as Bonhoeffer says, “death serves God.”
Those of us in Christ know the joy of “dying to self” and being found alive in Christ. Death has lost its sting. We no longer grieve as those “without hope,” for death does not have the final word.
Is the world still full of death? Does the Evil one still try to steal, kill and destroy? Absolutely, and what does that tell us? The world needs a Savior. What’s the good news? We have one in Christ Jesus, who has come that all who put their trust in him may have life, and have it to the full.
What do you say when death breaches the peace of your life or that of one you love? “Death, thank you for the reminder that you’re not the end all be all anymore! Christ has won the victory!
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. 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. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”*
Halellujah!
Grace and Peace
*Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2010. p. 384.
*1 Corinthians 15:51-54 (NIV)
Thanks so much for sharing!
Yes! Hallelujah!