On Death

Many have pointed out that today our society is as moralistic and judgmental as it ever has been. We live in a “call-out culture” in which people are categorized reductionistically to good or evil and then are publicly shamed until they lose jobs and communities. People are charged for what used to be called sins and are punished and banished in ways that look remarkably like religious ceremonial purification rites.

So when Hamlet spoke of death as “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns” he was wrong. Someone has come back from death. Jesus Christ has destroyed the power of death and “a cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world” for us. When by faith we grasp this, we need fear darkness no more.

We were created to last. We don’t want to be ephemeral, to be inconsequential. We don’t want to just be a wave upon the sand. The deepest desires of our hearts are for love that lasts.

unless you salt your grief with hope, your grief will go bad.

Our future is not an immaterial one. We are not going to float in the kingdom of God like ghosts. We’re going to walk, eat, hug, and be hugged. We’re going to love. We’re going to sing, because we’re going to have vocal cords. And we will do all this in degrees of joy, excellence, satisfaction, beauty, and power we cannot now imagine. We’re going to eat and drink with the Son of Man.