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THE DEATH OF DEATH

It was a small country church somewhere between Cleveland and Chattanooga, Tennessee off Highway 58.  I sat with the thirty-five others I had counted as the funeral service proceeded.  My best friend’s mother had died and family members and friends that could be there were there, but at eighty one, you often outlive many of both.

Two nephews spoke fondly and proudly of their grandmother.  My friend and his wife honored her with majestic words of praise.  A singer’s voice broke with emotion.  Memories swelled through me of my mother, father, brother and countless other family and friends I had said goodbye to.  A wife in our church whose husband died in the night, looking into my face with tears coursing hers saying, “Pastor, this isn’t fair”...  Another whose husband died instantly at the wheel of his truck.  No chance to say goodbye and no, it isn’t fair.  So many, many others that quickly flashed by and the thought came again, as it had so many times before, death, you are a cruel invader.

My friend’s mother had been in ill health and they knew she was nearing the end of her journey.  My Mother left this world at age 83 and I knew, as did my friend, we cannot hold them here forever.  But we sure would if we could.  No matter how robust your faith and assurance of heaven and the resurrection, there is something permanent about death that stings us to the heart.  You know when you walk away from that piece of ground; never again in this life will you see or speak to that mother or loved one.  And friend, that’s hard to digest for the most spiritual among us.  No wonder the pagan and the faithless struggle with some of the clichès Christians use.  I struggle with the clenches’ we use.

Look around you.  Everyone you love and hold dear to your heart will one day slip from your grasp into eternity.  Every one of us and everything in this world is temporary and transitory.  And nothing can change that fact.  We are only here for awhile and then what?

I hate death.  Paul writes death is mankind’s last enemy (I Cor. 15:26).  But he also writes death will be defeated.  We have that assurance because of Christ’s triumphant resurrection from the dead and His becoming the first fruits of those that sleep (vs.20).  “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (vs. 22).  And that’s more than religious jargon.  That’s a hope that anchors my soul.  I confess to having a morbid dread of death.  I’ve never determined a way that I’d like to die.  The pain of separation, crying till your tears run dry and that unbearable agony of loneliness.  Oh, I would ever avoid it if possible.   But there are many hard facts to life and death is one inevitable fact.  I can prepare but I doubt I’ll ever be ready. But amidst all these powerful emotions of my flesh and soul I have a faith forged in the crucible of fiery trials over time.  Christ holds and sustains those who trust Him.  And He gives us an insight to a day when death will finally die.  The cruel invader, so devastatingly powerful and irresistible, will one day lose its grasp and DIE!

Standing at the gravesite reading scripture over my friend’s mother, I recited the words to a song of Petra’s which proclaims this powerful message of truth.

“Many still mourn, many still weep.  For those they have loved that have fallen asleep.  But we have this hope though our heart may still ache, one shout from above and the all will awake.  And the grave will come up empty handed that day.  Jesus will come and steal us away.  Where is the victory, where is the prize?  When the grave robber comes like a thief in the night?  Where is the victory, where is the prize?  When the grave robber comes AND DEATH FINALLY DIES? 

Sound too fantastic to be true?  Not really.  “And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14).  Yes, the day will come when we will see the death of death and that’s one funeral I will be glad to attend, shouting die death, die.  Till then, I’ll be “going on still” (Gen. 12:9), facing the future in faith into whatever our great God has planned for me. 

                                                                      Roger Rowe Woodard ~ Sr. Pastor