Death Be Not Proud
It leaves utter devastation in its wake. It has no mercy or discretion. It is not discriminate. It comes to rob, steal and plunder, though we have all been duly warned.
Death embraces everyone. It is the destiny of us all.
It seizes entire generations of youth, like it did during the four years known as the 1st World War. It grabs huge swaths of populations, like it did during the epic of the Spanish Influenza or the Black Death. Its day-job is to pick us off one-at-a-time.
Our mothers and fathers are usually the first to go. It would appear to be a natural turn in the course of events, but what is natural to the norm is horribly unnatural and grievous to those so afflicted. Death is neither statistical nor abstract when it strikes our lives.
My brother-in-law spent his final minutes of life being wheeled on a gurney down a hospital corridor. I can never forget the look of abject fear in his eyes as he was being hurried to the room wherein he passed. He was frightened silly.
A congregant passed from this earth while sitting up in his hospital bed with the remains of an ice-cream dessert in process of digestion. He just passed with no frills or fears.
Two fine Christian women within my pastoral purview went to heaven while singing hymns. Another beautiful Christian woman was seemingly flushed down the toilet during her final days, though I have no doubt her soul was ushered into heaven by angels.
None of us can speak to what it is like to actually die, though a number of persons, having been pronounced clinically dead before being revived, can offer their stories. They are instructive, even if they must be treated with caution and care.
Do note that Lazarus, though brought from death to life, by Jesus, is never given opportunity, at least not in the pages of Scripture, to tell his story. I haven’t a clue as to why, if not for our need to be careful and cautious in relating or receiving such material.
Baptist pastor Don Piper has written of his extraordinary experience in 90 Minutes in Heaven. He is cautious and careful, though also (and rightly!) exuberant and joyful, and has ministered to countless numbers of people. Not everyone would be so responsible.
The topic does, admittedly, lend itself either to the sensationalistic or the morbid, take your pick. But death is, when removed from the environment of the Gospel, both sensationalistic and morbid.
It is sensational in that anyone so directly affected, whether the dying person or those who are losing someone they dearly love, are struck in the most powerful and shattering of ways. All of the sensations, both physical and emotional, are hit and hit hard.
It is morbid in that …well, just approach the casket at a funeral and you will, no way around it and with all due sensitivity, encounter morbidity in the flesh. There lies one who, however much physically present, is horribly removed from us in all other ways.
Death is our own personal 9-11. It is an apt comparison.
The world stopped on September 11, 2001. Our lives stop, at least for a season, when we lose a loved one. The one was a national crisis fraught with geopolitical ramifications. The other is a personal trauma replete with the most exacting repercussions.
But death is not the sovereign despot that the historical record suggests. English poet John Donne, in his Holy Sonnets, magnificently gives the lie to what otherwise appears to be an impregnable truth:
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 can’st thou kill me …
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
Die it did, at least in ultimate terms, when Jesus Christ administered the full spectrum of victory over three critical and transformative days when on the Cross, while in Hell and when resurrected. It was a smashing victory that stands atop all so-called A-Victories!
The Romans destroyed the Carthaginians at Cannae. The Normans conquered the Saxons at Hastings. Muslim invaders were successfully fought at Tours by Charles Martel and the Franks in 732 and, by ship, at Lepanto in 1571. Wellington carried the day against Napoleon at Waterloo. The German menace was squashed twice during the 20th Century, notably in the Ardennes Forest, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Each battle or war was decisive and historically-altering. Nothing should be taken from the accomplishment as we are, in large measure, all the better for it; certainly this is true for western civilization. But none compares with what Jesus accomplished at Calvary.
It is an uplifting exercise to consider what Jesus accomplished there. The Apostle Paul left us all in his debt insofar as the ramifications of the Cross are concerned. He knew that of which he spoke, as he didn’t simply preach, but also carried, the Cross of Christ.
It didn’t matter how others perceived the Gospel: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (I Corinthians 1:22-24).
American soldiers gave their lives during the 2nd World War in order for Europeans, Asians, Jews and future generations of Americans to live and to live freely. We get it.
Jesus gave His life that we light live and live freely and abundantly, both historically and eternally. It is a similar principle; why, then, is it so difficult to comprehend? Why is there is such a proclivity to center Christianity on something other than the Cross?
A cursory look at how the Cross affects our lives tells volumes. Paul provides a detailed description in his letter to the church at Colossae:
First, we were spiritually circumcised “in the putting off of the sinful nature … with the circumcision done by Christ.” The act of circumcision marked the Israelite in contrast to the rest of the male populace. Christians have been set apart from those around them. Peter reminds us that we are “strangers and aliens” in this world (1 Peter 2:9).
Second, we were made alive, having been dead in our sin – We were “made alive with Christ.” He tells us elsewhere that “because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions and sins – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4, 5).
Third, our sins were forgiven. The Pharisees made quite a stink about this when Jesus offered forgiveness of sins to the lame man. “Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get us, take your mat and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins …” (Mark 2:8-10).
Who did He think that He was? Some of them, I suspect, knew quite well who He was; in any event, we thankfully have come to know that He is the Son of God and the Savior of the world! Is there any other?
Fourth, the Law was “cancelled,” or “taken away.” We can all be thankful, as “it stood opposed to us,” but no longer, as it was nailed to the cross.
This is no small item. I come from a legal family. My father was an attorney and my twin brother is one. I have come to know the truth of the assertion that “The law is the law.” You can’t argue with it; then again, we who are in Christ don’t have to!
Fifth, the spiritual forces arrayed against us and that continuously assail us were denuded of their power, as Jesus “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” (Wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall when this happened?)
The demonic realm is not to be underestimated in its daily influence upon our lives. Jesus confronted the demons. His early disciples went up against them. Paul warns us that our struggle is against them and not against people (Ephesians 6:10).
The work that He did was done on the Cross, but the life that I live is experienced by His Spirit, as I am given place in the heavenly realms and as the life I live here, to draw upon words of the deepest significance, I live “in Him.”
I think of my fine friend’s mother who recently passed away. Mrs. Clementi was born in 1916; that’s right smack-dab in the middle of the First World War. She was 94 when she passed, but a war baby when born!
I came into the world in 1961 and will consequently turn fifty in the fall. I don’t have a clue as to how much more time I will have on this planet, but I do know that my origin is not to be found primarily in an historical moment so much as in eternal milieu.
The Apostle Peter has explained that those of us who know Christ were “born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). I was born, not in a moment of time, but in Christ!
Eternity trumps history! I live, paradoxically, both in the heavens before God and on earth in Him. It is breathtaking in conception and blessed in reality. It takes a life-time to fully embrace and then eternity to fully explore.
My friend and elderly brother in Christ recently turned 90! He contracted pneumonia shortly thereafter and began to show signs of dementia. He didn’t have long to go, succumbing to the ravages of age and disease within mere weeks.
I visited with him two days before he passed. I found him lifting up holy hands, both imploringly and faithfully, as he cried to God for mercy, forgiveness of sins for His people and quoting Scripture. He went out praising and beseeching God!
His prayer and praise was received in the heavens, just as he was received into the Presence of God upon his passing from this world. Who would wish otherwise? Who would doubt? Not one who has known the love of the Savior.
Jesus gave assurance: “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (John 5:24, 25).
We come to life in the sense that we come alive to Christ, having our life with Him and in Him. It is a spiritual truth that requires experience to serve as explanation. Carnal minds can’t understand; such life exists beyond the powers of intellection.
Paul pronounced: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
There is no wiser conception, nor more fruitful experience, of life than this. Death may not be proud, but the righteousness of God is glorious. All praise belongs to Him!
Bradley E. Lacey
July 22, 2011