Death is Dead

John 5:25-28

Watch on YouTube

Death is the most jarring and unsettling thing in this life. Whether it’s the death of a childhood friend or the death of a family member, a father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter, a gut punch doesn’t even begin to describe it. It’s more like the very definition of sorrow. When that happens, memories of all the times that you shared with them come flooding back into your mind. There’s a hollowness when you realize that expectations you had for the future are gone and taken away. Those things won’t happen.

I think even those who suppose that death is just a natural part of life, they still feel that anguish and pain associated with that loss. Death is unsettling because it is unnatural. It’s not supposed to happen. Death is a terrible result of the fall into sin. It’s what happens when mankind turns away from God. God did not want man to sin. That’s why he instructs us not to. He instructed Adam and Eve not to. But they were deceived, and they took from the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And now they know evil. We know evil, and we know death, which is a result of it. The whole world was cursed in the fall into sin, and now people die. There are diseases, there are tragedies, and the world is dying. It almost seems like death wins. It seems like death gets the final say. But that is not the case. Scripture reassures us of this. In John chapter five, verse 25 through 28.

Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice (John 5:25-28)

Death doesn’t get the final say. Jesus does. Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, came into this world specifically to conquer death. He took on our flesh. He took on our sin. He took on the evil world, and he won. He went to the grave on our behalf. But he did not stay there. He went through the grave and he rose from the dead. He’s now seated at the right hand of the Father. So as Christians, we likewise will go through the grave to eternal life. Death no longer has to be as unsettling. There is still pain because there’s a separation and a loss. But we have the knowledge that Jesus Christ has the victory over death. Death didn’t win when it took your loved one. Very truly, I tell you, there is coming a time when they will hear the voice of Jesus and come out of the grave.

Jesus has life in himself and therefore all believers have life in him when they believe in him. He is calling us now to life in him through our baptisms and through the Word of God. And at the end of time he will raise up all of the dead. His resurrection is a glorious proclamation of victory over death to us. The Easter Hymn 346 in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal says it this way.

Death is dead, the true Life liveth!
O’re the portals of the grave
Life’s great Sun, bright-shining giveth
Light our darkened souls to save:
Christ arisen bursts our prison;
See his triumph-banners wave.