death has been swallowed up
I hate death. In fact, death (I will not honor you with a capital letter, even though John Donne did) – go to hell.
We’ve lost another teenager in our community, this time to a bizarre, untimely death – a 16-year-old died in his sleep. Our son and his friends have been wrangling with the matters that matter, and they’re winning the battle.
They know that indeed, their friend, is ‘in a better place,’ which is more than a place and so much better than better, more like – beyond best – a new beginning in the glory of being with Jesus. These young people value their salvation more than ever, , not just as a ticket to “get in,” but as a way of life, of being part of redemption and restoration until their day comes.
Still, their broken hearts are wrestling with deep questions, questions with no easy answers:
• What do we do with our pain, with our loss?
• What about our friends who do not trust in Jesus for salvation? We know that hell is a reality, for ‘the Bible tells us so,’ but what do we do with the fact that we can tell them, we can plead with them, we can love them, but we cannot force them to believe? What do we do with their struggle to grasp eternal existence when so many have been taught from their earliest days that there is no such thing? How do we make them see?
They are asking the hard questions for which we will only find complete rest when our minds are fully redeemed. For these dear hearts broken for their friends, I offer a few thoughts from Scripture that comfort and encourage me:
1. You can’t (make them see). That’s the Holy Spirit’s job (Romans 8:8). But you can live the real story, the gospel story in a way that its scandal is undeniable. You can pray without ceasing, and wait to see how God moves. And you can tell it and show it and most of all, listen to their stories and help them see the hope of the gospel.
2. Hate sin all the more. For indeed, it is sin, death, and evil whose source is Satan, the flesh, and the world that seek to kill and destroy hope both here, and hereafter.
3. GRIEVE. Weep, tear your clothes, and gnash your teeth. You are right – it does matter where your friend spends not only the next part of this eternity, but also this part. And know that until that day we go home, we will always yearn with a holy longing for the reconciliation of all things. That’s the image of God in us.
Through sin, death has entered the world, ravaged hearts, and destroyed life. (Hebrews 2:14)
By God’s extraordinary grace, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. In this true story is the great reversal of death.
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” I Corinthians 15: 55-58
