Death

            I’ll be honest – I don’t know what to do with death.

            I've never lost anyone I was close to. I can’t even remember the last funeral I went to before today. In many ways, that makes me even more scared of death. Not my own death – the deaths of the people I care about. One thing I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that every single one of us is mortal.

            Fear, however, is assuaged by knowledge. While I don’t know what I’ll do or say when the time comes to bury someone I love, I know that if we find our hope in Christ, death is powerless. Not only will we eventually be reunited, we will be reunited in glory. To die is gain.

            Death serves now as a gateway to victory for the Church. It also serves as a stark reminder to those of us left here on earth. “Pain,” C.S. Lewis writes, “is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It is a distinct reminder that there is something wrong with this earth. A resounding call to remember that, no matter how comfortable we may be here in our warm American houses, this place is not our home. It is a call to leave behind the meaningless things of life and instead take hold of true life, found in the Word who has conquered death.

            Death is a reminder of the promise that all things are going to be made new. What is wrong will be made right. What is dark will be consumed by light. One day Christ will come and be with His people, without the separation that sin brings. Nothing can stop that. Paul says that nothing, “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

            Christ is risen, and one day we, too, will stand with him in glory. Yes, we must walk through the valley of the shadow of death before that day. Yes, death might even touch every single one of us.

Hold fast to the truth that death cannot keep us captive forever.

“Oh grave, where is your victory?

            Oh death, where is your sting?”

- James