Real Life

My Grandfather's Funeral, 2010

Yesterday I attended the wake, and today the final service, of a woman from our church who passed away. As I was listening to our Pastor speak, I started to think about death. 

As Halloween has just passed, I have been thinking about how our culture has such a morbid fascination with death. We love to watch movies about paranormal activity and be entertained by witches and vampires. 

I was listening to a sermon online from the Book of Romans the other day, and in a side note, the Pastor mentioned that we should be ‘wise to truth, and naive to evil.’ That’s a bit challenging these days.

So this morning, I was thinking about how this woman has died. And about death in general. And then suddenly my thoughts began to shift focus.

I felt like maybe death wasn’t even the point.

I remembered a verse:

“A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” John 10:10 (MSG)

When we who have a relationship with Jesus die, we don’t actually die. Not in a truer sense. No, we begin to really live. In a realer-than-real-life-way. We begin to experience the fullest meaning of abundant life that our Father promised us. It sounds backwards, but it still true.

I think that understanding this truth would remove all fear of death. Or even the focus on death. 

And that is a beautiful thing. To not fear death but to long for something more wonderful and glorious than we’ve ever seen or dreamt of.

1 Corinthians 15:50 - 58

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.