A thread on death.

My father was a mortician. I grew up surrounded by death, decay, and corpses. Now for many, this seems like a rather morbid childhood—many days after school were filled with sitting in the embalming room as my father prepared a body, or riding alongside of him

to pick up a corpse. I wouldn’t blame you if you reacted in disgust or horror.

However, these moments were opportunities for my father to teach and for me to learn. I look back on those days with thanks and a strange sort of fondness.

As death surrounded our family, I saw old corpses; I saw young corpses; I saw tall corpses; I saw short corpses; I saw corpses of wealthy individuals; I saw corpses of poor individuals. At a young age I was presented with the blunt reality that death comes for us all.

As I grew I learned about mourning, I learned about the bitter suffering, I learned about death. Death is not natural. Step into an embalming room and experience the ambiance yourself. It is cold; it is bleak; it is devoid of life. For your experience, if you are “lucky” you will

encounter a corpse sitting on the table. There is no breath, there is no life in the body. It is frigid to the touch, it does not move, it simply does nothing.

I learned early on that death is always bad. It may end the bitter suffering of an individual—and for that we rejoice—

but death, death is always bad. Death is always an enemy. Death was never the plan. Death invades what it means to be human.

So, what does it mean to be human? The Genesis account lays the foundation that a human being is a body and soul together.

A human being is the union of two created gifts of God—a body and a soul.

How does death invade what it means to be human? By ripping the soul apart from the body. The soul is not “freed” from the body.

It is a tragic extraction of the soul from the body that is utterly catastrophic for life. Death tears apart two things that belong together.

Have you heard the common phrase, “I just don’t know how those without faith get through it”? I have; and I’m not sure it’s as simple as

saying that our faith makes facing death easier. In some ways, I think our faith makes it harder.

We are surrounded by a society and culture that belief death is simply the last stage of life. To have lived and loved, been loved and known other, what more could you ask for?

Like Socrates sipping the hemlock in tranquillity. Like those who have been catechized by John Lennon’s song “Imagine.” Death is a natural thing our world says. That’s not too hard. That’s easy.

Then what is hard? Hard is standing at the coffin of a loved one and giving them

a good long look. No amount of makeup can disguise the reality of death. No amount of embalming fluids can cause the corpse to breath again. And it is to this corpse that we stand by and say, “This body will be raised again.” That’s not simply hard, it’s impossible.

Just look at the New Testament, it’s filled with accounts of people having their minds blown by seeing Jesus alive. A man they saw die, really die, dead and buried. Look at Matthew 28, even the disciples struggle with this. They worship Him, but some doubted. Death is hard.

BUT; but, Jesus DID rise from the dead! Christ has been raised from the dead. So sins forgiven, death destroyed. And you know what? He’s “just” the start, the first fruits. There’s more to follow. For those who have died in Christ, live forevermore. Christ lives. In His body.

Forever. You will live. In your body forever. Death has been destroyed; death will be destroyed.

Our faith doesn’t necessarily make death easier. Death is never your friend. Don’t try to make peace with it. Death is not natural. Death is not part of life. It is an invader. It is

an enemy, but an enemy that Christ has already destroyed in Himself and will destroy in you on the Day of His Second Coming. You will see the fulfillment of death’s destruction with your own eyes. For it is true: alleluia, alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia.