DEATH -- NO!
Romans 8:31-39
Some of my church folks and I were standing around talking at a wedding reception. In a year that seemed to be centered around death, it was good to be present at an event that marked a new beginning, that celebrated life. One of the guys is a farmer, and I asked if I could come help during calving time. He was surprised, but he understood my need to experience birth and life for a change.
Without doubt, death is part of the human experience, whether it's the end of physical life and relationships or it's the multitude of lesser deaths that are just givens in life. They are losses and changes in our lives, like the loss of a job or our health or a broken relationship. There's the lesser death, the loss of hope and a future that comes with tragedy as a flood or storm sweeps away our lives as we know them, or we are forced to sacrifice our dreams and plans when unforeseen circumstances throw up roadblocks in our life path.
But does death get to have the last word? What then shall we say to these things that are part of the human experience? What is our response to death, great and small -- to sorrow, loss and grief?
Some of my church folks and I were standing around talking at a wedding reception. In a year that seemed to be centered around death, it was good to be present at an event that marked a new beginning, that celebrated life. One of the guys is a farmer, and I asked if I could come help during calving time. He was surprised, but he understood my need to experience birth and life for a change.
Without doubt, death is part of the human experience, whether it's the end of physical life and relationships or it's the multitude of lesser deaths that are just givens in life. They are losses and changes in our lives, like the loss of a job or our health or a broken relationship. There's the lesser death, the loss of hope and a future that comes with tragedy as a flood or storm sweeps away our lives as we know them, or we are forced to sacrifice our dreams and plans when unforeseen circumstances throw up roadblocks in our life path.
But does death get to have the last word? What then shall we say to these things that are part of the human experience? What is our response to death, great and small -- to sorrow, loss and grief?
Our answer is "no." "No," not in denial but in defiance that is informed by faith. With confidence, we can declare with the Apostle Paul that there is nothing in this world that can impede the caring and love of God which is in Christ Jesus.
Those who can rightly condemn us -- God and Christ -- are our benefactors and protectors. If God is for us, who or what can frustrate God's care and love for us? Who or what can keep God away from us.
Nothing - no thing - can. Be it trouble or hardship, life or death, God is with us every moment of our lives, protecting, loving and guiding us. Because of Christ, death, great or small, can never, never have the last word.
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