Last week I talked about the recent passing of Ray Labbe, a dear friend of our church and the leader of Isaiah 58 ministry.  I was blessed to be able to spend some good time with Ray’s wife Linda last week as we prepared for his Celebration of Life service (to be held Sunday, March 22nd from 1-3 at the Riverfront Community Center in Glastonbury), and she mentioned how healing it has been to let her heart be grateful for all the time she had with Ray.  It is so easy, and certainly understandable, to lapse into self-pity upon the death of a loved one, but choosing instead to be grateful for the life that was shared can really help lift the spirit to God and back to health. 

Michele and I recently experienced a death in our extended family – not someone we were close to, but an important person to some of the people we are close to – and it highlighted again for me the contrast between the death of someone who knew God the way Ray did and the death of someone who might not have known God.  Not to mention, of course, how those who know God cope with death compared to how those who do not believe in a God cope with the finality of death.  So for all who have struggled with a recent loss, I thought I would briefly recap the three Biblical truths about death which I had preached on back on November 9th of last year during the “Death and the Life after that” series:

1) Death is an enemy

Those of you with elderly parents or grandparents, or who work with the elderly, know that there is nothing glamorous about death.  For those who live a long life, the dying process is a painful, dehumanizing thing that is the cause of a great deal of pain and anguish for all involved.  And when someone dies well before their time, it is even worse, leaving us to question God and to despair at the tragic loss of what might have been. 

It is clear, and the Bible does not minimize the fact, that death is an enemy.  It also, importantly, was not God’s intention in the beginning.  Listen to Genesis 2:15-17:

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

And now, because of sin, all die:  “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).  Death is an enemy, something evil that was not intended from the beginning.  Losing any life is a tragic thing, and we should never minimize the heartache, the countless nights of crying, the hole in your heart that may never go away.  , For all who are grieving, I hope you will see the profound beauty and comfort in knowing that even Jesus wept when his friend Lazarus died (even though he would soon raise him from the dead).  Whatever your pain, Jesus weeps alongside of you for the evil that is death.  But I also want you to take comfort in this second reality about death:

2) Death has been defeated by Jesus Christ

Were there ever any sweeter words?  Death is an enemy, a terrible evil, but praise God, it is not the final word.  Some day God will destroy death forever, and this reversal began when Jesus died on the cross and experienced Hell, separation from God, in order to reverse the Curse and destroy the power of death:

But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone…Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil– and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death (Hebrews 2:9,14-15).

Jesus tasted death for everyone for three reasons, according to this passage: so that we will not die, so that Satan would be destroyed, and so that we would be freed from our fear of death.  Adam’s sin brought death upon the human race, but Christ’s death brings new life, resurrection, to all who believe (1 Corinthians 15:19-26).  And so now we can say, as Paul wrote, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”  “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. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). 

Death has forever lost its sting, thanks to Jesus Christ.  And at the end of time, death, the last enemy, will finally be destroyed forever:  “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 20:4; see also Revelation 20:13-15).

So what does this reality about death mean for us?

3) For those who die in Christ Jesus, it is like falling asleep and waking up in eternity

The most popular expression for death in the Bible is “falling asleep”:  “Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13 -18).  If that is the case, then while we may grieve for the loss we have experienced, we do not grieve for the one who has died in Christ, because they have simply fallen asleep and woken up in the arms of Jesus.  As Jesus said in John 11:25-26, “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?”  And again in John 8:51:  “I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” What a beautiful thing to know, that for all who die in Christ Jesus, it is like falling asleep and waking up in the arms of Jesus.

Death is an enemy, but it has been defeated by Jesus Christ, so that for those who die in Jesus, it is like falling asleep and waking up in eternity.  The majesty of this reality was captured beautifully by the poet John Donne in his poem “Death, Be Not Proud”:

DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

Thank you Lord for overcoming sin and death, and we continue to pray for your comfort and hope and gratitude to overcome all who are mourning today.  Amen.

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