Today I attended a funeral. The person who died was both a family member and a friend. This experience brought to the surface some thoughts I’ve been kicking around for quite some time.
People try many ways to soften death. Instead of saying “He’s dead,” they use phrases like “He passed,” or “She is no longer with us.” There’s “He went to be with the Lord,” and I even heard death referred to as a “graduation” one time. And of course they speak of the dead person as “the deceased,” “the departed,” etc.
But death is not soft. It’s terrible.
Another popular position is that death is a natural part of life. That it’s beautiful. That death is just a step in the human experience… an almost poetic part of a process.
But death is not natural, or beautiful, or poetic. It’s horrible.
In reality, death is quite UN-natural. Humans were created not to die. They had the tree of life in their midst and were meant to live forever. But when sin entered, death showed it’s incredibly ugly head.
Death is our enemy. Quite literally, our mortal enemy. It can’t really be softened or made less in any way than the unspeakable curse that it is, no matter how much we hate it.
Yes, death is a curse, but the resurrection … now that’s cool. The resurrection proves that death is not as final as it seems. We’re promised a life after this one is complete. Victory is coming.
Although God and His people may lose a battle, they have already won the war.
Death is the absence of life.In our natural self, we fear it, and try to avoid thinking about it.In Christ,there is no death.There is however much pain in separation.This is part of our human experience.Jesus went through human grief(Lazarus)for us.And because of His death and resurrection,we have nothing to fear when it’s time to leave our earthly bodies.
I couldn’t agree more!