The Death of Death
“Death is swallowed up in victory! O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? (1 Corinthians 15:55)
We were watching one of those documentaries about life in the ER.
An older woman had suffered a serious stroke; her husband of sixty years was by her side.
While doctors were caring for his wife, the man began reflecting on their long and happy life together.
They started dating when he was 18 and she was “the prettiest 17-year-old girl in the world.”
And with the saddest eyes ever, he spoke with endearing tenderness about how they started out together; they were poorer than church mice, he said with a smile.
There was the joy of raising a family, the satisfaction of establishing successful careers, and these days, it was all about those adorable grandchildren. He was thankful for the many wonderful adventures he got to enjoy that had taken him and his best friend all over the world.
When he spoke of her, his eyes just lit up.
He was eulogizing her and it was profoundly eloquent. It wasn’t hard to imagine them in love, young and beautiful, happy and carefree, during those sunshine years.
They had lived and loved and laughed together…
And now, the camera zooms in past the tangle of tubes and there lies the love of his life…
Ravaged by age.
Helpless.
Hooked up to life support.
In a condition that God never intended for anyone to experience (Genesis 1:31).
And the look on his 80-year-old face said it all.
Utter devastation.
I thought: How sad for them.
And my next thought: How sad for us!
All of us, really.
Since their story will be your story and my story (should the Lord delay His coming), devastating departures will continue to happen all around us, until at last, it’s our turn.
As I sat there pondering our sad plight and the untold devastating repercussions of the Fall, I was all the more glad for Good Friday and Easter Sunday that were only a few days away.
This gloomy fate that hangs over every human head is, of course, the reason Jesus came.
Back in the Garden of Eden there was…
No death.
No eulogies.
No heartbreak.
No strokes.
No need for life-support.
Life actually made sense.
Until sin entered the world and humanity became one long, never-ending train wreck of chaos and disorder.
Sure. There’s plenty of wonderful to go around in this life. And I, for one, am an optimist.
I see trees of greenRed roses, too.I see them bloomFor me and you.And I think to myselfWhat a wonderful world!
(I really do.)
But I am also a realist.
And I resonate with wise King Solomon’s keen observation:
“It’s all so very meaningless, this crazy life, isn’t it?” Meaningless, meaningless.
The Teacher (that’s what Ecclesiastes means) is putting the thought out there:
If all our hopes and dreams, all of our longing and schemes must end in death, then what’s the point, folks? Isn’t it all for naught, like chasing after the wind?
Well, yes. It would be… had God’s Only Begotten not come into the world.
He came in love, to defeat death, reverse the curse, and to restore a fallen world to its former state of eternal sunshine.
So that the heartbroken husband could whisper into his bride’s ear: the Savior is here with us, my love, all is well. You will awake in glory and I will follow safely behind.
Meaningful, meaningful, life with Jesus. He’s made a way through death and He is that Way.
New glorious bodies like His (Philippians 3:21) are waiting for us; ones that don’t grow old, whose beauty never fades, impervious to disease and decay, for ever and ever.
And in the meantime, Immanuel (God with us) is…
With us.
As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
And notice—it’s a shadow.
For the Believer, death has been disarmed; it’s lacking real substance to do true harm. A shadow never hurt anyone.
Like what Tolkien’s character Sam said to Frodo during the thickest darkness of their journey there in Return of the King.
With their fears and grief crushing them, Sam has a lifechanging epiphany:
“The thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing; there was light and high beauty beyond its reach.”
Death and all of its companion curses have been “swallowed up in victory!” There’s Light and High Beauty beyond its reach.
“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54-55)
Answer: Jesus, our Savior, tasted death for all of us. He’s taken the sting on our behalf and because of that we shall fear no evil.
So, my friends, this Easter, God Himself stands ready as always…
to wipe away that husband’s tears (and anyone else’s) who trusts in His Son, in a land where no shadow is cast because the old order of things… has passed away… the death, of death.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me, even if they die, yet shall they live!” John 11:25
