Death is Swallowed Up in Victory

Jesus wept as I now weep.

My witty and winsome mom, my sister-in-Christ, my spiritual mentor whose biblical insight prompted this blog for purposes of online study with my sister, is now ever-present with the Lord who called her home on June 5th in the year of our Lord 2015. My life will never be the same.  And certainly would not have been the same had she not known the giver of life himself and thus made him known to me and so many, including the one last soul the Lord placed in her path. Could this have been you?

Through my tears,

I rejoice that she has passed from death to life, cloudy vision to clear, mourning to joy; that her body no longer bears the ravages of mortality, but has put on immortality; that she now beholds the lover of her soul - her true beloved - face to face. 

I trust that I shall see her once again, for I know that my Redeemer lives!

Yet Jesus wept as I now weep.

Though imminently he would raise his friend Lazarus from the dead, Jesus - moved with compassion - wept.  The Lion of the Tribe of Judah roared at the enemy.  The Faithful Shepherd rescued his sheep.  The Lamb of God sacrificed himself and the earth shook in its grief.  Death...is always painful.  Sometimes in the very act itself, but always in the separation from the living, death is painful.  Death is the very sting of sin - like the pungent sting of the onion for which this blog was named, so is the heart-wrenching sting of sin upon our mortal beings, upon our relationships to God, man, and our world. It is, and we would all do well to consider, the ever present reminder of the end-result of sin, the ever-present truth that death awaits us all as Solomon notes, "No man has power to retain the spirit, or power over the day of death" Ecclesiastes 8:8.

However, there is one who has power over death, there is one who is a life-giving spirit.  That same Jesus who wept,  who raised Lazarus from the grave,  conquered death by his own death, giving victory to all who are in him by his own resurrection.  Philippians 2:7-10 states that Christ, "though in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men [Adam].  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Paul makes clear that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself" and that "Christ (the last Adam) became a quickening spirit." (2 Cor. 5:19, 1 Cor. 15:45).

Like Paul, we can proclaim then, "O Death, where is your victory?"

"For if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.  If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.  But NOW IS Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 1 Cor. 15:17-22.

"Death is swallowed up in victory," and *we can stop weeping,  for the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome....and I saw between throne and the elders...a Lamb standing, as if slain. 

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his faithful servant. Ps. 116:15

*paraphrased from Revelation 5:5-6.