Our Common Enemy
We have a common enemy you and me. In fact, this enemy is the enemy of us all – short or tall, slender or heavyset, young or old, male or female, rich or poor, no matter your race, no matter where you were born, or what you believe. We all have the same enemy. This enemy is death. We all face the reality of death. It has affected all of our lives or will one day. We can’t escape it.
Death, cruel death. This enemy, this curse, separates loved ones. It creates pain and suffering. It evokes grief and sorrow. It devastates. It destroys. We can try to deny it. We can try to ignore it. We can try to tempt its fate. We can become numb to it when we read the headlines or see a movie where lives are wasted left and right. But there is no denying. We are live in its cross-hairs. The clock is ticking. One day when we least expect it, we will face death. Maybe today. We know this. We see it when we look in the mirror. We don’t want to think about it. But we know it.
Death should not be. It is wrong. It was not God’s plan. There once was no death. There was no pain, no suffering, no separation. Death entered the world with its twin – sin. And how painful & cruel the first death must have been for Adam & Eve who not only lost a child but a a child murdered by the hands of their only other child.
But yet though we all face it – generation after generation – in every place on the planet – death is sure to lose . The creator came. He to save us all from this common enemy. He looked death in the face. He experienced its pain. He took on death. Then… He defeated death. He conquered it. He arose. He took away its power. He gave life in its place.
And this is not just some wish or a blissful thought that we try to envision to numb the pain of death. Its not some fairytale. More than five hundred were eyewitnesses to this firstfruit victory.
One day this reality will be fully revealed. Now I see through a dark glass. Then I will fully understand. We will shout in victory: “Death, you slime, you have been swallowed up! Game over – you lose. Hey Death, where’s your victory? Come on now. Where, tell me where, O Death is your sting?” One day. The last enemy to be destroyed will be Death.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He will make everything new! Death will experience death. How ironic is that!
And yet right now, I – we, all of us on planet earth - still face this enemy. We still feel its sting. Even in a sure victory, we still live under its curse. We still grieve. We still know its pain and the hole it creates in our lives. But the paradox is that this future is also a reality. Death has no more power. I don’t have to fear death.
I hurt, but I have hope.
