Reflections on Death
We know that for everything there is a season and God has appointed those times. There was a time for Papa to be born and on November 16th it was his appointed time to die. The matters under heaven are ever-changing and we toil and toil and toil. Though, we praise you, God, that we can toil for your glory. We can take pleasure in our toil and enjoy your good gifts.
I struggle to find words to help me grapple with death. I don’t want to call it passing away or moving on because death is real, and death is what every life comes to at an appointed time. The death of my Papa, my first family member that has died that I have known, has me thinking a lot about life and death. It has me thinking a lot on the briefness of life and long length of eternity. It has me thinking on our souls—our bodies will be eaten up by worms and become dust again, but our souls live on into eternity.
As I reflect on the shortness of life, the regrets that loved ones feel following a death, and the reality of our eternal souls, I turn to Christ. I look to my Savior, the Son of God, who drank the bitter cup of death. For the joy set before him, Jesus drank the bitter cup of death for the sins of those who would believe in him. This leaves me to define sin because I too need a reminder, and it should be communicated plainly. Sin is lawlessness—sin is breaking God’s law. God is holy, eternal, good, just, righteous, wise, all-knowing, and worthy of praise. God’s law demands perfection because He is perfection. His law is for our good. His law is so that we might live a life within the good boundaries he created, in a perfect relationship with him, working to his glory and for our satisfaction in him. As I reflect on the shortness of life, I can’t help but reflect on sin and how it corrupts the few years we have in these dying bodies. More so, how sin has corrupted our very soul, and thereby leaving us sinning against our Holy Creator.
I have not set up a pretty picture. Death is in this life because of sin. Our sin against a righteous God demands punishment. God is love, and therefore he cannot overlook sin against him. It would totally negate who he is. A righteous judge does not pardon criminals, he gives them a sentence. Our sentence for sin against a holy God is death, under his just wrath, for eternity. Again, now as I reflect on the reality of our eternal souls I turn to Christ. God the Son incarnate was born. He was a man. He had desires. He grew in knowledge. He submitted to God the Father. He did not sin. He fulfilled the law’s demand of complete obedience. He was crucified on a cross and died. He willingly was humiliated, tortured, and ultimately killed for the sake of the souls of those who would believe in him. Jesus’s death was the payment for sin. We are indebted to a holy God, and only righteous blood can atone. Jesus rose from the grave, as prophesied, three days after his death. God the Son defeated death, sin, and took on the punishment that we rightly deserve. Jesus now sits at the right hand of God the Father, now an advocate for those who trust in him because of his perfect sacrifice. God desires that not one would perish but that all would come to repentance. You and me, sinners, offered forgiveness by nothing other than the blood of the Son of God himself.
As I think of the death of my Papa, I think of the urgent need for every person to repent from their sins and to believe in Jesus as the only way of forgiveness of sin and removal of guilt. This seems like an extreme conclusion, but it’s because this life is short and eternity is long. The greatest human need is forgiveness of sin. God in his mercy has made a way. The time is now that we might have life and have it fully. Because of Christ.
