Monday, April 27, 2009
2 Timothy 1:10 Our Savior, Christ Jesus, . . . has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.
JESUS LIVES! AND DEATH IS THE GATE OF LIFE
Death brings with it the pain of separation. It is hard to come to grips with the fact that, as long as we live, we will never see, hear, or talk to a loved one who has died. And modern conveniences seem to make this even harder to bear. It is so easy to pick up a phone to talk to anyone anywhere -- or to log on and send a note or a picture. But, of course, what is so simple with the living is impossible with the dead. Death throws up an impenetrable wall. It would seem to shut us off from our loved ones forever.
To call death a "gloomy portal" (The Lutheran Hymnal, 201:5) sounds like a fitting description for the gate by which we pass from this life. That, however, is viewing death from this side. Jesus, Who passed through the gate of death and returned alive, promises us that, because of His redeeming love and His victory over death and hell, all who trust in Him will pass through death to a glorious new life with God forever.
Looking at death from the other side it is bright with light -- and not a foreboding portal in a fearful wall but the door to our heavenly Father's everlasting mansions. The very house to which our Savior has gone with the promise: "I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (John 14:2-4).
Jesus lives! and now is death
But the gate of life immortal;
This shall calm my trembling breath
When I pass its gloomy portal.
Faith shall cry, as fails each sense,
Jesus is my confidence!
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 201:5)
