Death juxtaposed with life and love. Is there anything more startling?
Hi Everyone! It’s Cara writing today. I’ve been struck that over the past few days; we have been confronted with death and love, like a one-two punch. Whitney Houston’s death struck hard and fast, with all its surrounding tragedy and pain, for many who have followed her storied career and amazing voice. Then- three days and a lifetime away – the world rolls on to the next big thing, celebrating Valentine’s Day with flirty sweet pastel hearts, red foil-wrapped chocolates, and dozens upon dozens of roses.
What does death have to do with love, really? Everything, actually.
See the picture above this article? It sums up the truth about death and life, and life and love. It was taken years ago – almost seventeen years ago now – in a 400 year old cemetery in Andover, Massachusetts. I went to this town, and to the Harvard library in nearby Boston, to do some research. But, going there to study words, this image left me without any.
Death…mortality…swallowed up in life. There it is. The vibrant hope of my faith, the very watershed of my belief, the difference love makes to life, was brought into sharp focus in a graveyard. Headstones – the very symbol of death – swallowed up, broken up, enveloped, in the roots of the soaring trees.
“For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” 2 Cor. 5:4
We mourn. Whether for someone so near to our hearts as to be a part of the very warp and woof of our lives, or for someone we have come to know from watching afar, we mourn. Whether taken by illness, struck down by sudden tragedy, or by the sure-but-denied end of a cycle of destruction, death comes as a shock; never are we prepared for it, never are we truly
ready.
Yet, what does Scripture tell us? That death has been overcome. That God has made a way for death to be not an end but a beginning, not a tragedy but a release.
"Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power. But thank God! He gives us victory over sin and death through our Lord Jesus Christ." 1 Corinthians 15:54-57
And how does God’s Word say this miracle was accomplished? Through love. Through the everlasting, eternal, all-powerful love of Jesus Christ. This isn’t a pink-paper-hearts kind of love. It isn’t a light flirtation. God doesn’t change his mind, or withdraw his offer. This is a robust sepulcher-emptying, mountain-moving, heaven-opening love.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:16-17
We don’t know what our future holds here on earth. But, because of the true love of Jesus, we can know what our eternity holds. Do you believe that? Are you relying on this truth, this Jesus? It makes all the difference, now, and forever.
Classic Christianity