How do we deal with death? It is uncomfortable when death separates us from a spouse, parent, sibling, child, or friend. When 25,000 people get together the National Youth Gathering this summer, odds are that someone is going to experience death within their family during the week. So often in our lives we are reminded that the Body of Christ is uncomfortable with death.
The truth is, as the Body of Christ, we should never be comfortable with death, for our God is not comfortable with death. When our Lord saw death threatening His creation and His people, He was uncomfortable with it. Therefore, in response He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to put an end to it.
Christ in His fleshly body was uncomfortable with death. That is, Christ wept at the gravesite of his friend Lazarus. Christ’s body sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, as His own death approached. To be sure Christ’s body was uncomfortable as He hung on the cross dying for our sins. Even more, know this: the body of Christ was uncomfortable lying in the tomb, and so He took up His body and walked right out on Easter morning, making death very uncomfortable! Death had lost its grip on the Body of Christ forever!
The Body of Christ makes death uncomfortable every time a Christian is baptized into it, for in Baptism death loses its power over us. Moreover, the Body of Christ makes death uncomfortable, when the members of a church confess their faith in the risen Lord and the resurrection on behalf of babies who are baptized. Though death tries its best to make us uncomfortable through the means of sudden tragedies and prolonged suffering, God’s means of grace strengthen His people, making death uncomfortable as we continue to receive the very Body of Christ in the Lord’s Supper.
As the Body of Christ gathers in heaven and on earth separated by walls and locations, but united by one Spirit, it gathers to make death uncomfortable. We deal with death (1) by confessing our faith in our God who has created us, redeemed us in Christ’s blood, and makes us holy; (2) by calling upon our Lord to deliver us from our enemy, death (Ps 50:15); (3) by proclaiming His promises of life and resurrection (Jn 11:25); and (4) by singing a new song, the new song that joyfully proclaims that Christ will return to raise His people, wipe away our tears, and put an end to death and mourning, for He is making everything new (Rev. 21:1-5).
So how do we deal with death? In Christ, we live! In life or death, we live to make death uncomfortable.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” –John 11:25,26
Have a great day in the Lord!
originally published at www.LCMSYoungAdultMinistry.org
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