Light in The Shadow of Death

“Easter is a time when God turned the inevitability of death into the invincibility of life.” -Craig D. Lounsbrough

Death. It haunts us. The Undiscovered Country, Hamlet called it. As Christians we are obligated to believe in life after death. We cling to the hope that there is a heaven and one day we shall be raised from death in new bodies as the apostle promises. And still death haunts us. We are reminded daily that time is short and no matter how prepared we think we are, the shadow of death frightens us because its unknown, we have not done it before and once you do die, you cannot come back, well usually.

The truth is death frightened Jesus too. Though He is God, our Lord felt the terror of death, “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:44). He knew he had to suffer, and face death, which in our mortal flesh man fears, “Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.” (Hebrews 2:14-15 NLT). The fear of dying was one of things Jesus came to set us free from, and so He faced it first, being the Firstborn of the Dead, “He is also the head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” (Colossians 1:18).

Resurrection Sunday is about that, about God The Son being the firstborn from the dead, that He returned from the grave, that the words of the angel are true, “He is not here, He is Risen.” (Matthew 28:6). This gives us hope, that the God we trust in tasted death for us, “Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9), and returned from it, just as we shall return on the Day of Resurrection. We are blessed with the example of our Emmanuel, that death could not hold him and that by extension it will not hold us! So when the fear of death has you in its grip, look to the Garden Tomb and see that it is empty, that all tombs will one day empty and all will be raised from death to be judged by The Lord who too has experienced death. Amen.

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