O Death

Had Christ the death of death to death

Not given death by dying,

The gates of life had never been

To mortals open lying.

I'm not sure where I found this little poem, but I stumbled upon it sometime within the past few months. It was credited as "Unknown" (that guy and his brother Anonymous sure get around, I'm telling you), so I can't tell you much about it. At first I saved it to my compilation of quotes (it's literally 39 pages long, and counting) so that I could ponder it later. The first time that you read it, if you don't take it slowly, you'll wind up really confused. (I know I did.) 

But then, if you read it slowly... it's really quite profound. Put into simpler tongue, it's saying that if Jesus hadn't killed death by dying, true life in Heaven wouldn't be accessible to us. 

If I let myself go too deep into this subject, we'll all end up with migraines. The post would be so long that not even I could read it. (And even without my fullest extrapolation, it'll still be pretty lengthy.) When it comes to God, you just can't exhaust anything. Because He goes on forever and is infinite in every way, our discussions and thoughts on Him never end. It is impossible for a human to fully comprehend God. But we can surely do what we can. 

This poem reminds me of an excerpt from Miracles, a book by good ole C. S. Lewis. I found this paragraph in A Year With C. S. Lewis. 

On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more. On the other hand, only he who loses his life will save it. We are baptised into the death of Christ, and it is the remedy for the Fall. Death is, in fact, what some modern people call 'ambivalent'. It is Satan's great weapon and also God's great weapon: it is holy and unholy; our supreme disgrace and our only hope; the thing Christ came to conquer and the means by which He conquered.

Wow. I often find myself jealous of Lewis' literary excellency and theological wisdom. In this excerpt he explores the death in life and the life in death. He shows us, quite plainly, that death is both our kindest of friends and our harshest of enemies. I've found myself meditating on this passage quite a bit. It is so profound. I would compose on it, but really, is there anything left for me to say? Lewis is well-known for his honesty and precision. Quite frankly, he inadvertently leaves many subjects impossible to expand upon.

I am then reminded of a Bible verse. I've used it on here before, but I failed to see the profundity of it. It fits right in with Lewis' aforementioned description of death:

[We are] always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 

~ 2 Corinthians 4:10 (NKJV)

How did I not see that before? Without Jesus' death, we can't enjoy the life that He brings! Selah. I have to wonder if, whilst penning Miracles, C. S. read that verse. Perhaps this is a bit of a stretch, but one of the things that I got from this was that Jesus gave death a taste of its own medicine. This entire philosophical notion gives me a bit more joy than it should give a teenager.

Another thing that I am reminded of in all of this is that some people wonder how a loving God could kill His Son. Again, that would take quite a bit of space to do the subject justice. There are so many corridors and rooms to explore within that house. I find quite a bit of truth in this quote:

The dying Jesus is the evidence of God's anger toward sin; but the living Jesus is proof of God's love and forgiveness.

~ Lorenz Eifert

While this quote doesn't encompass fully the subject of the crucifixion, it's pretty interesting. Because God is a just Person, He must punish sin or it must somehow be atoned for. (This is why in the Old Testament, His children had to perform ritualistic sacrifices in order to avert judgment.) With Jesus, He made the final sacrifice. He got in the last word. And yet again, this leads us to another extremely long post, which will have to be written some other time. God is like that; you can't condense any given aspect of Him to one blog entry. You could write for your entire life and still not even come close to finishing. My head is already spinning! All that I wanted to do with this post was give you the excerpt from Miracles and ask you to think about it. Instead I've ended up with another novel!

Anyways. I'll try and bring this to a close. You've got a life that you should get back to, and so do I. Basically, through this wild goose chase that I've led you on, I've just given you a few additions to C. S. Lewis' thought. One could think for hours about death and its theological and philosophical implications and properties. Jesus, the Man Who was God, slayed death by arising from it. He conquered its power. We can now boldly shout,

O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?

~ 1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)

We no longer have to consistently live in rituals. We don't ever have to make an atonement sacrifice. Jesus did that for us. And through Him, I completely agree with Socrates:

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.