I wrote about this idea a little over a year ago, in the midst of processing Stephen & I’s grandfathers passing away while we were here in Thailand.
“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—’ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.”
Genesis 3:22-24
It still crosses my mind quite often, when we deal with death of older people in the community or when I see the suffering in the faces of mothers, fathers, and even the kids. I was just running tonight to Matt Maher’s Christ is Risen, praying it over a little town that sometimes feels death-filled:
Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over debt by death
Come awake, come awake,
Come and rise up from the grave
Oh, death! Where is your sting?
Oh, hell! Where is your victory?
Oh, church! Come stand in the light!
The glory of God has defeated the night!
Oh, death! Where is your sting?
Oh, hell! Where is your victory?
Oh, church! Come stand in the light!
Our God is not dead; he’s alive, he’s alive!
I just finished Bonhoeffer’s biography tonight, and since he’s titled a martyr on the cover, I’m not spoiling it to say it doesn’t end well. Or does it? He is murdered by the Third Reich of Germany after being engaged for just three months and then imprisoned for eighteen. He writes about the gift of death this way:
“Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she may already be to the goal? That life only really begins when it ends here on earth, that all that is here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up–that is for young and old alike to think about.
Why are we so afraid when we think about death?…
Death is only dreadful to those who live in dread and fear of it. Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God’s Word. Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves. Death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in him. Death is mild, death is sweet and gentle, it beckons us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting kingdom of peace.
How do we know that dying is so dreadful? Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?
Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous, that we can transform death.”
(Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy; p.531)
VERY WELL SPOKEN……. gMA