Sunday, December 11, 2011

Too much death?

While preaching my sermon this morning, a thought, a memory stirred across my mind. I remember in college an older friend (much more liberal than I) remarked to me, "Eric, you see too much death." This was not a statement about how I had witnessed mass slaughter in a village or anything like that... but simply that I saw so many things in this life and made the tie to death.

My friend purported himself to be very wise.

I thought all he was doing was denying reality.

This is really what the world and its wisdom tries to do - it tries to deny death. But death is all around us -- that ache, that pain -- that's death. That bitterness, that anger -- that's death. I look at my son, and even as he is healthy and growing... I see his temper. That's death. I see his stomach that is quite urpy and the discomfort it causes him. That's death.

Death is everywhere in this fallen world. Sometimes it's pretty -- I miss the changing of the leaves up north... but really, that's death. Sometimes we don't think about it -- but harsh words often kill a friendship. That's death. And then there is the grosser, more obvious stuff - poverty, hunger, addictions. All death. all just the wages of sin creeping closer and closer, a camel sliding its deadly nose under the tent flap.

Christ came to give life, to defeat death.

In your life, receive Christ, and then go forth and counter death. Counter it with love, with mercy, with compassion, with peace.

I see death all the time. And as a new creation in Christ, I rightfully despise it and fight against it.

Not well, but ultimately, I'm not the one who defeats it.

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