6 Apr
The End of Death
Fourteen years ago, I sat on Pensacola Beach as the tide moved in and out – but I barely noticed the ocean. I was too enamored with this gorgeous woman sitting next to me, my girlfriend for a couple years. We talked. We dug our toes in the cool sand. My heart thumped like a sledgehammer trying to break free. And when the time was right, I said, for the very first time, I love you.
Truthfully, though, I had little idea what those words meant. I didn’t know the kind of desire and pain and hope and disappointment that came along with such a simple declaration. We usually grasp the gravity of our profound experiences later, as we actually begin to live them.
This seems particularly true for the few faithful women who wept at Jesus’ tomb that first Easter morning. Jesus’ body was gone, and the women feared foul play. But a strong, radiant angel appeared and spoke earth-bending words. Jesus is not here; He has risen (Luke 24:5-6) This declaration gives us immediate truths: death has no hold on Jesus; and in His triumph, Jesus has won life and forgiveness for us.
But there’s more…
If you had to define God in a word (of course we can’t – absurd, but if we could…), about the best we could do would be this: life. Likewise, if we had to define Satan in a word, about the best we could come up with would be this: death. Death (Satan) aligned against life (God).
As a result, we are in a world drowning in death. Have you noticed? Do you see death in the eyes of children whose families have been ripped to shreds? Do you see death in the wars that rage and in neighborhoods submerged in hopeless cycles of poverty? Do you see death in your own heart when fear will not loosen its grip, when the accusing voice will never shut up, when your emptiness or your sin will never leave you alone? Are you drowning in all the death?
Drowning in death, what is our hope? If the Kingdom of Death has us in a stranglehold, what is our hope? The only possible remedy is preposterous – that God would come and dive into our cesspool with us, take into His own body all of the rage and the assault of death and extinguish it in Himself. This unthinkable rescue is precisely what Jesus did.
When Scripture announced Jesus trouncing death, the pronouncement asserted something even more cataclysmic, more total, than we imagined. This is the stunning revelation: in Jesus’ death and resurrection, Jesus broke “the power of him who holds the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14). Along with securing human forgiveness, Jesus’ resurrection shattered the tyrannical power of evil, every smidgeon of it.
Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death… [The Troparian of Pascha]
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Filed in: Cross, Forgiveness, Sin, Worship
About the Author
Winn is a pastor and the author of Restless Faith, Let God: The Transforming Wisdom of Francois Fenelon and the upcoming Holy Curiosity: Facing Jesus’ Provocative Questions. Winn enjoys the music of Amos Lee and Josh Rouse, the literary work of Eugene Peterson and John Steinbeck, hiking, and independent coffee shops serving fair-trade roasts. Winn’s greatest joy, however, is good conversations with his wife Miska and wrestling with their two boys Wyatt and Seth. You can connect with Winn online at winncollier.com.
