The Death of Death, The Defeat of Sin

UV 3681/10000 The Death of Death, The Defeat of Sin The righteous man perishes ( at the hand of evil), and no one takes it to heart; faithful and devout men are taken away, while no one understands that the righteous person is taken away ( to be spared) from disaster and evil. Isaiah 57 v 1 Christ is alone in history as one who gives us hope while we live and when we die. Sometimes death overtakes the righteous by faith, the believer so that he or she is spared from greater evil. Such a person may be ready in all aspects to meet the Maker since he or she has been clothed in salvation and no part of his life can now be condemned or judged. In the current world wide pandemic, we hear of deaths near and far of those who knew God personally through His Son Jesus. They might have been taken earlier to spare them from greater evil or as they had no more tasks to do for the Divine Master. Many of us who are spared from death as we have work to do for the Lord. Our time has not yet come when the Father calls us to His bosom. There are many heroes of history who took on many challenges of life but Christ is alone in addressing the twin enemies of humanity – sin and death. Since Christ is God in us and God with us, the transcendent becoming immanent in us, the Living God dwelling in the living bodies of people, making their bodies His habitation, His tabernacle not made with human hands or to a human design, lives being built on the templates of the Word of God, the Lord God is closer to us than our own skin. Hence, we can keep sin at bay and we have immediate and ultimate victory over the complex it represents of death, curse, limitations, spiritual poverty, purposelessness, vanity, futility, frustration, failure, weaknesses. While no man or woman can say that he is prepared for death whether it comes early or late, he can face the grave with confidence that it will not hold him or her forever. The bodies that the ants and termites destroy are not the person that died but a mere vestige, his or her mortal remains, a covering. The Lord has redeemed the precious part, the soul. That soul has romped home before the funeral procession hits the street on the route to the grave. Death before Jesus robbed man of meaning and purpose in anything he attempted or achieved. But Jesus in His death and resurrection robbed death of its power, of the irrevocable finality of our mortality. Jesus during His earthly sojourn as through history since His resurrection and ascension has proved that He is master not just of life that all nature obeyed Him but that He is master of death and that death obeyed Him. Death has been changed from being a full stop to just a comma in the grammar of God. While we cannot take away any earthly treasure in our hands, the result of our labour, we can store up the infinite riches of the Lord’s wisdom, power, love and grace in our hearts while we live on earth. Departing we carry these treasures with us into the spiritual realms to receive the crown, the ultimate reward of a life lived in faith. Indeed, what we sow on earth, we reap in heaven. What we sow with tears, we reap with laughter.