Death Come No More

"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!"  Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

"Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die." -Loretta Lynn 

From an early age I have had a severe fear of death.  I would lay in my bed at night and imagine my dying day, lain in a coffin and then utter darkness, forever.  A great panic would grip me; I would run to my mom and have her comfort me until the panic seeped away. As I grew older, I learned not to peer into that dark day, but to live in a way that boasted of immortality.  Yet despite this chasing of the wind, death has not failed to whisper in my ear its reign over me and everyone I love. There finally came a time in my life that I suspect many of us will experience, where I had to face my fate, to stop running from it and accept the reality that death will have its day.  In some ways this was both freeing and utterly depressing.  Freeing because fear was no longer my master, and depressing because deep within me, within us all, is a furious resistance that wants to live and will never accept death.

Often we try to sugarcoat this thing called death, especially when loved ones pass away.  We say things like, "I'm so glad so and so died, they are in a better place now."  And while there is some truth in this, it is very different from how Jesus responded to the death of a loved one; He had no words only tears, bitter weeping.  I find this odd because a few moments later Jesus would call his friend back to life.  How could our King, knowing what was coming next, cry so terribly at such a moment?  I have come to believe that Jesus was making a declaration of sorts in those tears, that death is not okay. We were never meant to die; life, full-on living is our destiny.  The early church father St. Irenaeus said that "the glory of God is man fully alive."  And for Jesus, for whom the glory of the Father was his deepest longing, death's lingering reign brought mourning and tears.  But that was not all it brought.

Jesus, defying death with his tears exerts his power over death and reclaims Lazarus from the grave.  While we mourn death's stain, we also rejoice in its defeat.  Jesus would soon face our greatest enemy head on and like us all, He embraced its reality and drank from that bitter cup and with his last breath he cried out. Death, once again, brought tears.  But it would never again have the last laugh for after the mourning came a new morning and a new King.  Death's dynasty was laid to rest and the once dead man, Jesus, bust forth a new day and a new hope, a new life.

O death where is your sting? It is buried in the grave!