Posts tagged ‘Resurrection’
Say Something
First it was Buffalo. Then, last week, Uvalde. In total, 31 people lost their lives. The pictures, stories, and stunted potential of so many precious people is heart-rending.
Again and again, we ask: Why can’t we stop this? And again and again, we discover all sorts of signs were there that deadly trouble was brewing. Law enforcement referred the Buffalo shooter for psychiatric evaluation because of his macabre musings. Days before the Uvalde shooter commenced with his massacre, he sent disturbing social media messages to random teenage girls in Germany and California. So, we ask again and again: If the signs were there, why didn’t someone intervene?
When Eve falls to the twisted temptations of a talking snake to eat some divinely forbidden fruit, not only does she partake, “she also gives some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6). Adam was with Eve the whole time she was conversing with a snake, which, in and of itself should have been a signal to him that something was drastically amiss, but he didn’t say anything. The warning signs were there, but Adam never intervened. And the result was death as sin came into the world.
At the heart of the Christian message are people who saw something – and said something. As one of Jesus’ followers, Peter, explains:
We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is My Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased.”We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with Him on the sacred mountain. (2 Peter 1:16-18)
Because these first followers of Jesus said something, the world was changed – and lives were, for eternity, saved.
As debates continue to rage over the police response in Uvalde and over how to address and prevent these mass shootings more generally on the local, state, and national levels, on a personal level, if we see something, we need to say something. And we need to remind others to do the same. What we say might just be what saves a life – or many lives.
For those who are grieving because they have lost loved ones in these depraved shootings, here is a promise: the God who sees them and loves them will say something. And what He says will be life-restoring:
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. (Ephesians 5:15)
The losses we have endured are unspeakably evil, but they do not have the last word. This is the last word: Christ is risen – and so will they.
Resurrection Trouble
Easter is hopeful and scandalous all at the same time. It is scandalous because its message insists that what we think we know about death – that it is inescapable – has been escaped by Jesus. It is hopeful because there is something about death’s demise that strikes in us a chord of longing.
Sadly, the message of Easter – that Christ has risen in space and in time and in His body – has often been reduced to little more than a message about general hope for tomorrow and a slightly more spiritual-sounding non-descript existence after death. But it was not this way in the beginning. As N.T. Wright explains:
Death is the last weapon of the tyrant, and the point of the resurrection, despite much misunderstanding, is that death has been defeated. Resurrection is not the redescription of death; it is its overthrow and, with that, the overthrow of those whose power depends on it. Despite the sneers and slurs of some contemporary scholars, it was those who believed in the bodily resurrection who were burned at the stake and thrown to the lions. Resurrection was never a way of settling down and becoming respectable.
The resurrection caused trouble in that world – and it can still cause trouble in this world.
To the tyrant who murders to secure your power – the resurrection will destroy you.
To the disease that saps and sucks the life out of bodies – the resurrection will undo you.
To the hopelessness and helplessness and grief that can set in when a loved one dies – the resurrection will conquer you.
To the devil himself – the resurrection has already defeated you.
This is what we mean when we declare, “Christ is risen.”
And He has, indeed. Alleluia.
Not Much Lasts Forever
Whenever I was encountering a tough time as a child, my mother used to remind me, “Not much lasts forever.” Though it was hard for me to believe or see at the time, she was right. The problems that seemed to be such a big deal when I was in grade school, middle school, or high school are now just distant memories – and, in many cases, not even memories at all. I have forgotten about most of the things I was once upon a time so upset about.
Perhaps the most famous story in the Bible of a tough time belongs to a man named Job. His story opens with him as the richest man around, but then, through a series of Satanic-inspired calamities, he loses his wealth, his family, and his health. He wonders out loud if he will even lose his life:
A man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more. As the water of a lake dries up or a riverbed becomes parched and dry, so he lies down and does not rise. (Job 14:10-12)
As Job ponders death, he, at first, indicates that death would be a tough time that would last forever. When a person dies, after all, “he breathes his last and is no more” and “he lies down and does not rise.” Death, Job seemingly indicates, is permanent.
But Job is not quite done yet. After Job speaks of how a man, in death, “lies down and does not rise,” he continues:
…till the heavens are no more, people will not awake or be roused from their sleep. (Job 14:12)
Death, Job says, comes with a “till.” Death will last “till” the heavens are no more. But what about after the heavens are no more? The apostle Peter helps us:
The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. But in keeping with His promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:10, 13)
After the heavens disappear, Peter promises that there will be a new heavens and a new earth – along with a new us. We will be raised from death. For, as my mother reminded me, not much lasts forever – not even death.
Job asks:
If someone dies, will they live again? (Job 14:14)
Peter answers Job’s question with a resounding, “Yes.”
More Than a Memorial
Today is Memorial Day. Today’s observances continue a tradition that began on May 5, 1868, when General John A. Logan called for a nationwide day of remembrance at the end of that month for those lost in the Civil war:
The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.
Because General Logan called for the decorating of graves, his observance was called “Decoration Day.” Over time, Decoration Day came to be known as Memorial Day and was moved to the last Monday in May by an act of Congress in 1968 and has been celebrated on this Monday ever since 1971.
As Memorial Day encourages us to do, remembering those we have lost is critical. And like its predecessor, Decoration Day, reminds us, using physical objects – from crosses to pictures to flowers to flags – to help us remember can be healing.
The night before Jesus goes to the cross, He gathers His disciples to celebrate a final meal with them. As in Decoration Day, Jesus presents His disciples with some physical objects:
Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and gave it to His disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is My body.” Then He took a cup, and when He had given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:26-28)
And as in Memorial Day, Jesus also encourages His disciples to remember Him:
“Do this in remembrance of Me.” (Luke 22:19)
But this meal is more than simply a memorial with some tokens that help us remember a person we have lost. The apostle Paul writes that, when we partake of this meal with its objects of bread and wine, we are not only remembering with Christ, but communing with Christ here and now:
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16)
But how do we commune with Christ – indeed, even with His very blood and body – here and now?
If Christ had shared this meal with His disciples before He died and then remained dead, this meal would simply be a memorial. But He did not stay dead. Three days later, He rose. So we do not just remember Christ with bread and wine, we truly commune with Christ in the meal He has given us. He is our risen and living host.
Paul also writes:
We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16-17)
Paul reminds us that Jesus’ resurrection is only the beginning of something even bigger. Because Christ has risen, those who die in Christ will rise, too. And we will all be together again. Children who have lost parents in battle, parents who have lost children, husbands who have lost wives, and wives who have lost husbands will all be reunited. And Memorial Day will be needed no more. For on the day Christ returns, we will not just remember our lost loved ones, we will commune with them – and with Christ.
Today, let us take a moment to remember those who have given their lives in battle to protect and defend this nation. But let us also hope for the day when we will need to remember no more because we will be able to see those we have lost face-to-face. The headstones we visit today will one day give way to hugs we enjoy forever.
That’s a promise worth remembering.
Why We Need Easter
In an article for The Washington Post, Emma Pattee writes about how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought us face-to-face with the reality of our mortality:
You probably remember where you were that day in March when you first realized that the novel coronavirus was something …
I remember where I was: driving to the gym for a Mommy & Me boot camp.
I pulled up to a red light and locked eyes with my 6-month-old baby in the rearview mirror. I felt unsettled and scared. I had an inexplicable urge to go home, and also to call everyone I knew and check on them. Yet nothing had happened. I was safe, healthy and employed. At that point, in mid-March, I was more likely to die of a car accident than of contracting covid-19 …
That eerie uncomfortable feeling has been described as grief. As fear. Or anxiety. But Sheldon Solomon, a social psychologist and professor at Skidmore College, has a more robust explanation: It is the existential anxiety caused by reminders of our own mortality.
Simply put, to function as a conscious being, it’s imperative that you be in denial about your impending death. How else would you go about the mundane aspects of your daily life – cleaning the gutters, paying the bills, sitting in traffic – if you were constantly aware of the inevitability of your own death?
Ms. Pattee goes on to cite studies that have found that we seem to be hardwired to fear death and to avoid thinking about it:
A neurological study was published in 2019 about a mechanism in the brain that avoids awareness of a person’s own mortality and that categorizes death as something unfortunate that happens to other people. …
An Israeli study showed some participants a flier about death anxiety and others one about back pain. When subjects were then offered an alcoholic beverage, one-third of the death flier group bought alcohol vs. one-tenth of the back-pain group.
We don’t like death. And the day we celebrated yesterday – Easter – gives us an answer as to why.
Scripture’s story is that we were created not to die, but to live. But when our first parents, Adam and Eve, fell into sin, they reaped the wage of sin, which is death (Romans 6:23). But this wage disordered the way creation was designed to be. It was designed to be filled with life – not marred by death.
Our dislike and fear of death, then, can be rightly said to be a yearning for the way we know things “should be.” We should not have to mourn the loss of our loved ones. We should not have to struggle and suffer through a pandemic. We should not have to endure horrific acts of violence that lead to death like wars and mass shootings. We should not have to deal with death. We can sense that dealing with death is, in some way, profoundly unnatural.
This is why we need Easter. Easter is the beginning of a return to the way they were always supposed to be. As Timothy Keller puts it in his book Hope in Times of Fear:
The resurrection was indeed a miraculous display of God’s power, but we should not see it as a suspension of the natural order of the world. Rather it was the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world, the world as God intended it to be.
In other words, death is wrong. Resurrection is right. Life is what the world was designed for, which is why it’s what we yearn for. And our yearnings will be fulfilled.
Christ’s resurrection is not only a feat against death, but a forecast that death will not have the last word. Christ’s resurrection, the apostle Paul says, is a “firstfruits” of our own resurrections (1 Corinthians 15:20). As Christ is risen, we will rise. And death will die. This is the message and the promise of Easter.
I hope you celebrated Easter well yesterday. And I hope you’ll hold on to all that Easter is today – and every day.
Disaster in Beirut
Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images
When I first saw the video footage out of Beirut, I, like so many, was horrified. As so many others have noted, what began as a raging fire turned into what looked like an atomic bomb explosion in the heart of Beirut’s harbor – complete with the mushroom cloud that literally knocked people down for miles around.
But it was not an atomic bomb. It was not an attack by some nefarious force or enemy nation. The culprit here was negligence. It is now being reported that at the site of the explosion, there were thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate stored alongside a cache of fireworks. How they got there is a case study in incompetence. The Guardian interviewed a former port worker, Yusuf Shehadi, who explained that the Lebanese military had demanded that the ammonium nitrate be housed there. Mr. Shehadi explained:
We complained a lot about this over the years. Every week, the customs people came and complained and so did the state security officers. The army kept telling them they had no other place to put this. Everyone wanted to be the boss, and no one wanted to make a real decision … The port workers did not put the chemicals there in the first place. That outrage rests with the government.
The fireworks stored there date back all the way to 2010, after customs confiscated them and needed a place to put them. Apparently, a decade was not long enough for customs to find a more suitable storage spot for the fireworks. In other words, this was a disaster waiting to happen. Of course, now that the disaster has happened, there is plenty of finger pointing, but little to no responsibility taking.
After history’s first disaster – humanity’s fall into sin – just like with Beirut, there was plenty of finger pointing, but little to no responsibility taking. When God discovers that Adam and Eve have eaten from the tree He had forbidden to them, both of them are quick to try to pass the buck:
The man said, “The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Genesis 3:12-13)
Sadly, this finger pointing did not solve anything. It only led to death – just like in Beirut. In that town, the latest death toll stands at 154 with more than 5,000 people injured.
When Jesus is on trial before Pontius Pilate, there is plenty of finger pointing going on. “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king,” some say as they point at Jesus (Luke 23:2). “He stirs up the people all over Judea by His teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here,” others accuse (Luke 23:5). And just like in the Garden and just like at Beirut, this finger pointing leads to death – Jesus’ death. But this death is different.
The prophet Isaiah says of Jesus’ crucifixion:
Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering. (Isaiah 53:4)
Rather than taking the fingers of His enemies and pointing them right back at them in their sin, Jesus willingly took up their finger pointing and he took up responsibility for the sinfulness and brokenness of the world.
It is unlikely someone will actually step up to take responsibility for this tragedy. In reality, no one person can. There are no doubt dozens if not hundreds of people who were complicit in this dangerous storage setup. And besides, no amount of human finger pointing or human responsibility taking will bring back those who have lost their lives in Beirut’s tragic explosion. There is only One who can take responsibility in a way that will actually solve this tragedy – in a way that will actually bring those who have lost their lives back in a resurrection. And His name is Jesus.
He takes responsibility for what we cannot.
Resurrection Hope
Credit: Burne Jones, 1890 / Picture by Martin Beek / Flickr
Christ is risen! These words are needed now more than ever in our world. As the death toll continues to climb from COVID-19 and the virus continues to spread, although thankfully at a slower pace than it has, we need to be reminded that no affliction or adversity, no trial or torture can put Christ back in the grave. The grave is empty and, because it is, our hope is secure.
In one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, the apostle Paul speaks about the hope we have because of Easter:
If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (1 Corinthians 15:17-20)
Paul refers to Christ’s resurrection as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” In other words, those who have died or will die in Christ have the assurance that they too will one day be raised to live with Christ forever. Christ’s resurrection on Easter is a preview of our easters when He returns.
Martin Luther, in a series of seventeen sermons he preached in 1533 on 1 Corinthians 15, offers these comments on Paul’s words:
Because Christ is risen and gives us His resurrection against our sin, death, and hell, we must advance to where we also learn to say: “O death, where is thy sting?” [1 Corinthians 15:55] although we at present see only the reverse, namely, that we have nothing but the perishable hanging about our neck, that we lead a wretched filthy life, that we are subject to all sorts of distress and danger, and that nothing but death awaits us in the end.
But the faith that clings to Christ is able to engender far different thoughts. It can envisage a new existence. It can form an image and gain sight of a condition where this perishable, wretched form is erased entirely and replaced by a pure and celestial essence. For since faith is certain of this doctrine that Christ’s resurrection is our resurrection, it must follow that this resurrection is just as effective in us as it was for Him – except that He is a different person, namely, true God. And faith must bring it about that this body’s frail and mortal being is discarded and removed and a different, immortal being is put on, with a body that can no longer be touched by filth, sickness, mishap, misery, or death but is perfectly pure, healthy, strong, and beautiful …
God did not create man that he should sin and die, but that he should live. But the devil inflicted so much shameful filth and so many blemishes on nature that man must bear so much sickness, stench, and misfortune about his neck because he sinned. But now that sin is removed through Christ, we shall be rid of all of that too. All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on earth. (AE 28 202-203)
Luther’s final words beautifully summarize the hope of Easter: “All will be pure, and nothing that is evil or loathsome will be felt any longer on the earth.” As we continue to struggle through these evil and loathsome days of pandemic, I’m looking forward to that day!
Christ is risen! Nothing can change that and no pandemic can outlast that.
Kobe Bryant: 1978-2020
Credit: Alexandra Walt / Flickr
When my wife said to me from the other room, “Kobe Bryant is dead?!” I thought at first she had been taken in by another one of those celebrity death hoaxes that sometimes make their rounds on social media. But she hadn’t. The news was true. The loss was real.
As the story of Kobe’s untimely death began to sink in, my first thought was, “He was my age.” He was born a mere two weeks before me. Then when I learned that his daughter was with him on the helicopter flight that crashed and took their lives, this tragedy felt even worse. Kobe leaves behind his wife and three other daughters. I cannot imagine the pain they must be experiencing right now.
As the news played a never-ending loop of Kobe Bryant highlights, reporters interviewed fellow stars who were memorializing him and fans who were crying over him. The death of a household name like Kobe Bryant – especially under the fluke circumstances of a terrible crash – brings into sharp focus something so many of us are generally loathe to consider: the stark and dark reality of death.
As a nation grapples with the loss of one of its biggest stars, there is an ancient perspective on death – the Christian perspective on death – that is worth our reflection, for, I believe, it can be a source of hope. So, here are three Christian claims about death.
Death is unnatural.
Contrary to what Forrest Gump’s momma told him, dying is not just a part of life. There’s a reason that, when someone dies, tears flow, questions of “why” are asked, and anger at a life-gone-too-soon ensues. It’s because we can feel that there is something profoundly unnatural about death.
The Christian faith teaches that this feeling about death is nothing less than a good theology of death. Death is the result of and the punishment for sin. It is not, however, part of God’s creative design. It was introduced only after Adam and Eve disobeyed God. This is why the apostle Paul calls death an “enemy” (1 Corinthians 15:26).
So, if you ever find yourself mourning a death, don’t feel as though you must feel that death is natural. It’s not. Your tears can flow, your questions can be asked, and you can shake your fist at what has taken your loved one from you.
Death is inevitable.
Death may not be natural, but it is inevitable. Part of what makes a passing like Kobe Bryant’s so shocking and tragic is because he was a man who seemed invincible. A sports columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Bill Plaschke, eulogized the basketball great this way:
Bryant, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, were among nine people who died in a helicopter crash Sunday in Calabasas and how does that happen? Kobe is stronger than any helicopter. He didn’t even need a helicopter. For 20 years he flew into greatness while carrying a breathless city with him.
This can’t be true.
This is the way Kobe seemed – stronger than any helicopter. And yet, life’s fragility – and death’s inevitability – have coldly slapped a culture that treats its sports stars as invincible in its face.
The 17th century English poet John Donne wrote a poem in 1624 about a bout he had with spotted fever. While in the throes of his sickness, Donne heard the bells of a nearby church ringing at a funeral. He opined:
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
Donne knew that even if he survived this sickness, he would not survive every sickness. One day, the bell would toll for him. Indeed, one day, the bell will toll for us all – no matter how strong, how rich, how famous, how moral, how respected, or how invincible we are.
It is maddening. But it is true. Death is inevitable.
Death is destroyable.
The first claim of Christianity – that death is unnatural – we feel. The second claim of Christianity – that death is inevitable – we can empirically verify, for we all die. This final claim of Christianity – that death is destroyable – is one that calls for faith.
On its face, death does not seem destroyable. It seems only to destroy us. And yet, Christianity claims that there was once a man who was destroyed by death on cross who managed to return the favor to death when He rose again three days later, destroying death. And because He destroyed death for Himself, Christianity claims that He can also destroy death for us. For just as He once emptied His grave, He will one day empty our graves. As the apostle Paul explains:
Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-54)
Death is destroyable, Paul says.
The same poet who once reflected on the inevitability of his own death also wrote a sonnet about his hope for life. John Donne called it “Death Be Not Proud”:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
When death takes a life, John Donne reminds us, it “swell’st thou.” It swells with pride that it has separated another family, brought on more tears, and broken more hearts. But even if death is stronger than us, it is not stronger than the One who once called Himself “the life” (John 14:6). And because of His life, we can have life, too – eternal life.
Kobe Bryant has died. But death should not be proud. Because Kobe’s death is not the last word on his life. For this much I know:
Death, thou shalt die.
May it be so quickly.
Death Is Not a Part of Life
When the gritty reality of death threatens to destroy the creature comforts and status-saturations of a decadent life, the resulting tension can be enormously uncomfortable. This tension was on full display last week in an admittedly scintillating article from the tabloid newspaper The Sun, which declared in a headline, “To Infinity & Beyond: From ‘young blood’ transfusions to apocalypse insurance – weird ways tech billionaires are trying to live forever.”
The article chronicled attempts to cheat death by such luminaries as Jeff Bezos, who is funding research to try to find a “cure” for aging, and Peter Thiel, who is rumored to have interest in transfusing blood from young, healthy people into those who are elderly in an attempt to make them young again. Though these schemes sound, on their face, cockamamie, they are also oddly understandable. Death is intransigently menacing. So, it feels natural to want to try to figure out a way to deal with it – to face it down, to cut it down, and to turn it back. But try as we might, death always seems to find a way to do to us what we want to do to it – to face us down, to cut us down, and to turn us back…into dust.
Two weekends ago, a heart-rending article appeared in the Sunday Review section of The New York Times by a self-avowed atheist mother who lost her four-month-old infant son. Amber Scorah’s description of her struggle is potent:
Several years after leaving my religion, I felt sure I had encountered all the situations I might possibly need to get used to in my new life.
What I had not prepared myself for was death. Grief without faith. Which is to say, death without hope …
My son was almost 4 months old when he stopped breathing at day care. It was his first day there, the first time I had left his side. Neither the doctors nor investigators could tell us why it happened …
Days passed, days in which nonsensically I lived while my son did not …
If belief were a choice, I might choose it. But it’s not. I don’t trade in certainty anymore. If there is something more, it’s not something we know. If we can’t even grasp how it is that we got here, how can we know with any certainty where, if anywhere, we go when we die? …
This is the one comfort that unbelief gives you, that this life will end and the pain you carry along with it.
Amber’s memoir is impossible to read without getting choked up. Here is pain, raw and real. But her pain, in many ways, poses only more questions. If there is nothing beyond this life, and this is just a fact of life, from where does our hatred of this fact come? After millions of years of evolutionary progress, hewed out by unrelenting broadsides from death, why can’t we just get over life’s end already?
Perhaps the reason we can’t get over life’s end is because we shouldn’t get over life’s end. Perhaps our hatred of death – whether this hatred be in the form of a tragic loss like Amber’s or in the form of awkward attempts to bankroll immortality by the world’s super rich – betrays a bias against death that is appropriate, right, and even natural. Perhaps we are hardwired to know, deep down, that things are not supposed to be this way. And no amount of atheist and evolutionary philosophizing and rationalizing can convince us otherwise.
Amber tries to salve her longing for life by devoting herself to the study of this life, or so she claims. She writes:
Asked about death once, Confucius answered, simply, “We haven’t yet finished studying life, so why delve into the question of death?” The question of my son’s death – the mystery of it, why he vanished – remains without answer. And so I ask the questions of life: What force grew this little child? How did those limbs form themselves from nothing inside of me? Why did I have the power to make him, but not to bring him back?
While claiming she has devoted herself to the study of this life, she manages to lapse right back in to pondering her son’s death. Death, it seems, finds a way to successfully stalk her life.
Jesus once said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). He was, like Amber, a student of life. But He was also, like Amber, stalked by death. And so, Jesus claims to be the answer to the billionaires and grieving mothers alike who struggle with death – He can face down, cut down, and turn back death.
Try as we might, we can’t quite seem to normalize and naturalize death – which just might mean that the claim that Jesus makes of being resurrection and life is worth our investigation. It just might mean that Jesus is not so much calling for us to suspend disbelief for the sake of the supernatural as He is calling for us to admit what we already intuitively know is very natural – that death is not a part of life, but an enemy against life that must be defeated.
We can’t help ourselves. We hate death and want life. Jesus promises to defeat death and give life. And if His promise is true – and I believe that it is – then He is the answer to our irretractable longings.
Sri Lanka, Persuasion, and Resurrection
Credit: Ronald Saunders / Flickr
There is this telling line that describes the way in which the apostle Paul conducted his ministry: “Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks” (Acts 18:4). Paul, when it came to sharing the gospel, sought to persuade. And, by all accounts, he was quite successful. What began a small group of hundreds of Christians in the first century now numbers 2.18 billion.
The Christian faith has always had an affinity for persuasion. There is a whole subset of Christian teaching categorized as “apologetics,” which is meant to defend the faith against those who would attack its integrity and persuade those who question its credibility. Indeed, persuasion is critical to the Christian mission. Christians are called to make winsome, reasoned, intelligible arguments as to why Jesus is the Messiah in the confidence that God’s Spirit will bring people to faith in Jesus as the Messiah.
Not everyone, however, operates in this way of persuasion.
Last Sunday, as Christians in Sri Lanka were celebrating the resurrection of Christ, a spate of coordinated, terrorist attacks were launched by nine suicide bombers at three churches and three hotels in the island nation’s capital, Colombia, killing around 250. There were warnings in the days and weeks before the attacks, which Sri Lankan officials failed to heed. One of the suicide bombers had been previously arrested, but was then released. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attacks, although the extent to which the terror group was involved remains unclear.
Tragically, these kinds of attacks have become unsurprising. In 2017, 18,814 people were killed in terrorist attacks worldwide. This represents a whopping 27% decline in deaths from the year before. Many, many people have lost their lives in these acts of evil.
Behind terrorism lies an ideology that those who disagree with you, whether their disagreement be theological, philosophical, ideological, or political, cannot and are not to be persuaded. Instead, they are to be defeated and destroyed. This way of thinking is as horrifying as it is frightening. But it is also, ultimately, unsuccessful.
At the dawn of the third century, when Christians were being severely persecuted by the Romans, a church historian named Tertullian famously wrote to the Church’s persecutors:
Your cruelty, however exquisite, does not avail you; it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.
And seed it was. When Tertullian wrote these words, there were around 19,000 Christians in Rome, about 4% of the city’s population. 50 years later, that number had grown to 78,000, around 17% of the city’s population. By the year 300, there were nearly 300,000 Christians in Rome, which constituted over 66% of the city’s population. Christians were killed. But the Christian Church could not be stopped. The persecutors’ terrorizing overtures were unsuccessful.
As it was in Tertullian’s day, so it is in our day. The threats of those who despise Christians are simply no match for the persuasive and attractive truth of Christianity. Those who lost their lives in Sri Lanka while worshipping the risen Savior on Easter are not extinguished. They are simply now waiting – waiting for the One who, on the Last Day, will call forth their bodies from their graves. To quote Tertullian once more:
The resurrection of the dead is the Christian’s trust … Life is the great antagonist of death, and will in the struggle swallow up for salvation what death, in its struggle, had swallowed up for destruction.
A terrorist may be able to take a life with a bomb, but he cannot extinguish that life for eternity. Just like some soldiers, a long time ago, were able to take a life with a cross, but they could not extinguish that life for longer than three days. Of this we are called to persuade people. Of this I am fully persuaded.
Christ is risen. And because He has risen, Sri Lankan Christians will rise. And so will we.
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