Christ our Hope in Life and Death
Death has felt closer these last few weeks than I usually experience. Several deaths have struck near our church community; some I have known personally and others not. There are families with loved ones on the edge of life and death in a painful place of waiting for grief and relief. And then there have been recent moments that shockingly reminded me of the brokenness and evil in our world. These often go unnoticed, yet they served as chilling reminders that death and evil are always nearby.
A few weeks ago, I got to accompany Janie Strickler as she sang a beautiful and heart-wrenching song at the funeral of a friend’s husband who had passed very suddenly. (How Janie managed to sing so well while her grieving friend was in the front row is hard to imagine!) Because of where I was seated in the sanctuary, I was able to clearly see the family in the front row. They were all grieving in various states of stoic containment and heaving sobs.
It was very moving. It was terribly sad.
For my current 90-Day Grow Plan I have chosen to walk through something called the New City Catechism. This is a book or an app that offers reflections on foundational Christian doctrines through a series of 52 questions and answers. And like God often does, this has become uniquely relevant as funerals have continued to show up on my calendar.
The very first question, what you could rightly assume may be the most foundational truth this training tool is trying to reinforce, reads,
“What is our only hope in life and death?”
The Sunday-school answer to that question is: Jesus. And He is part of the answer. But, what about Jesus gives us hope that is useful now in this life and as we face deaths of those around us and ultimately our own mortality?
Here is the full answer to that question from the “New City Catechism”
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul,
both in life and death, to God our Savior Jesus Christ.
This is not something I would recommend saying to someone in a moment of grief. It would probably be better to say nothing and rather stay present and attentive. But this simple answer provides four foundational truths for us to cling to knowing that.
1. We were bought at a price - 1 Corinthians 6:20 reminds us of this. Christ paid for our redemption through his own death. And not only are we not our own, because of this we are not alone through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. God has never left or forsaken His people.
2. Body & Soul - Every aspect of our experienced existence, material and immaterial belongs to Jesus. We are not just “souls with a body”. We are both. Jesus’ incarnation would not have been necessary if our physical earthly bodies were of no consequence. Our physical infirmities while not caused by Jesus, now belong to Jesus and His redemptive work. As do our souls. Those immaterial qualities of personality, emotion, thoughts, and desires. The totality of our existence resides with Christ.
3. Life & Death – Now and forevermore. This is the truth that has brought me some encouragement from the heaviness. The good and bad of life belong to Jesus. That does not make hard experiences less difficult, or grief less painful but it lifts them out of the mire of hopeless dark. Because even in death I still belong to the LORD. In faith and hope that hard experiences can and will be redeemed, that grief will ultimately be turned to joy. Whether in this experience of life or in life everlasting with God.
4. God our Savior, Jesus Christ who Himself knows the experience of Life & Death. The grief of a funeral is not foreign to Jesus as he wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Hebrews 4:15 reminds us that Jesus experienced all the hardship and temptation we do. And though he died, He did not stay dead.
For those of us who have a saving faith in Jesus Christ, we are not our own. We belong body & soul in both life & death to Him who lived a perfect life and defeated death in His resurrection.
John Day
