Reflecting On Death During the Holidays
For many, the holidays are the most wonderful time of the year. For me, the holidays are when I reflect on death. No, I am not the Grinch, nor am I given to morose self-flagellation. It is because, as others have written, the holidays are a painful reminder of a missing family members and friends. Many of my holiday seasons, it seems, are marked by death. Five winters ago, my grandmother died from a low-speed car collision. Three Decembers ago, my good friend’s mother died from a brain aneurysm. Last Thanksgiving, my friend’s bridesmaid died from hydroplaning on the freeway. This year, just over a week ago, my friends’ 19-year-old brother died suddenly from heart complications.
Surrounded by merry tunes and twinkling lights, the sadness of the season is like a bitter taste that refuses to be undone. Why do cars crush the life out of their passengers? Why do infections invade the heart and the lungs and the brain? Why do college students die with no explicable cause? Why do pastor’s kids commit suicide? Why do little children get cancer? Why do babies perish before seeing their mothers’ faces? Why do patients die on the gurney because there is no room in the ER? Why do wars and diseases and gunshots and accidents and cancers rob us of the lives we hold so dear?
The Sting of Death
In 1 Corinthians 15:55, while speaking about the resurrection, the apostle Paul gloats over death: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” But to that, my heart cries, “Death’s victory is right here! In the hospital, the COVID ward, and the convalescent home. In my family, in my church, in my friend’s life. The sting of death is in the very memory of loved ones no longer here.”
In such times, I often turn to Psalm 88. The psalmist writes, “You have put me in the lowest pit, / In dark places, in the depths” (88:6). “Your wrath has rested upon me, / And You have afflicted me with all Your waves” (88:7). He says, “O LORD, why do You reject my soul? / Why do You hide Your face from me?” (88:14). “You have removed lover and friend far from me; / My acquaintances are in darkness” (88:18). Unlike our cowardly prayers, the psalmist refuses to use vague language like “God allowed it.” He directly charges God: ‘You have done it!’ Or, as another suffering man in the Scriptures says, “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away” (Job 1:21). Although there are many other psalms of lament, Psalm 88 is the only one to end in darkness. There is no hope of heaven, no hope of salvation, no light at the end of the tunnel—only despair. This is the sting of death. This is the victory of the grave.
Again I say, during the holidays, I think upon death, for the death of loved ones and the loved ones of others around me has been interwoven into my memories of the holidays. But there is a greater, better reason I think upon death during the holidays: by death, Christ defeated death and reigns as the Resurrection and the Life.
The Answer to Death
The answer to death and despair is Christmas—not the veneer of merriment, overplayed holiday specials, and cheap plastic decorations—but the true Christmas. In Christmas, we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ—but not only that. Yes, we sing of the virgin mother, the heralding angels, the Emmanuel, the fulfilled promises. That is good and right. But we must never stop there, for Christ was born to die.
It is in Christ’s death—His victorious death—that a world enslaved to death can find hope. By His death, Christ died the death that Adam and all his progeny deserved. By His death, He “rendered powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). By His death, Christ defeated death, and “God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power” (Acts 2:24).
In Christ’s death, we live. His death was a demonstration of the ultimate cost for our sin—but it was not only that. His death was a sacrificial atonement to cleanse His people from their iniquity—but it was not only that. His death was a loud clarion call of the sovereign, eternal love of God for sinners—but it was not only that. His death was also the precursor, the prelude, the opening act to the resurrection of He who is “the Resurrection and the Life” (John 11:25), and of our coming resurrection with Him. 1 Corinthians 15:21–22 says, “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.” We have been crucified with Christ—and therefore have died—but we live because He lives in us (Galatians 2:19). We have been united to Him in His death, that we might take part in His resurrection (Romans 5:5). In Him was life (John 1:4), and we have partaken of Him.
Mocking Death
But, descending from the mountain of theology, we crash quickly back to Earth. Christ defeated death, but losing loved ones still hurts. Jesus is risen, but funerals are still full of mourning. Christ is victorious, but the chair at the dinner table is still empty. The darkness does not lift merely because we shake a theological truth at it. Can we really mock death when it cuts so deeply?
Yes, but not now. Soon, but not yet. 1 Corinthians 15 is an extended argument for the resurrection, and verse 55, in which Paul mocks death, comes at the end of the argument. Just before, Paul writes:
50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. …53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 54 says that we mock death “when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality”. In other words, death is swallowed up in victory and mocked by all who love the Lord Jesus when we have inherited immortality through the Lord Jesus Christ. We must shed our earthly flesh and blood so that we can inherit the eternal kingdom. We must discard our perishable bodies so that we can put on imperishable bodies. Then, and only then, will we be able to cry without reserve, “Death, you are swallowed up in victory! O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?” Then we will mock death. Then will the victory be complete.
The “sting of death is sin” (1 Corinthians 15:56), and that sin has been vanquished by Jesus Christ. The “power of sin is the law” that condemns us (1 Corinthians 15:56), and it has been fulfilled and abolished by a law of grace and of Christ. For “death reigned from Adam until Moses” (Romans 5:14), and then from Moses until Christ. But in Christ, death reigns no more. Death has cowered in the face of Jesus Christ and Christ crushed its head. As Paul concludes this glorious chapter, “[T]hanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). He has risen, and death reigns no more over me!
Victory Over Death
On its face, this victory is not an answer to my many questions about death: why children die so small, why the young die in their prime, why death is so cruel. But it does answer a much simpler, and more profound question, from which all my questions stem: “Why do we die at all?”
At the most basic level, we die because we sin. From the beginning, it was not so. While it is certainly tragic that children die, we must not think that it is “normal” for old grandpas and grandmas to die. Death is not normal; it is the most twisted thing on our planet. Everlasting life was supposed to be normal; perfect communion with God, abundance of joy, unending love and relationship were, from the beginning, designed to be profoundly ordinary. But we sinned, and death reigned.
But, Christ defeated death and subdued it. Before Christ, death was our enemy that robbed us and our loved ones of everything we hoped for and held dear. But now, in Christ, death becomes the very portal through which we, God’s beloved, are freed to enter into life abundant, never to die again. In Christ, death becomes the window through which we see a coming kingdom in which He will reign forever and ever, and death will be no more (Revelation 21:4). In Christ, we die, not as punishment for our sin, but as the last step in our journey to heavenly glory.
But Christ’s death does not transform only the believer’s death. Yes, unbelievers who do not believe in Christ will die on this earth, and then die eternally in the second death. But Christ’s death also points to a coming time in which “there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4) for all eternity, for by death He has eradicated the roots of unbelief and sin and death. Soon, because of Christ’s death, unrighteousness will cease, and there will be no more suffering in the world. Soon, because of Christ’s death, the creation will be “set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Soon, because of Christ’s death, the entire cosmos will be free from its slavery to death, and He will reign forever and ever. Christ’s death and resurrection is good news for more than just humanity; it is good news for the entire cosmos!
The Lovingkindness of God in Death
Death is a thief and a tyrant, an abominable aberration, a damnable foe. I hate death. I hate how it tears humanity apart, steals sons and daughters and fathers and mothers. I hate that it mocks us in the hospitals, mocks us in on the highways, mocks us in our homes. It is an enemy and a foe, this wicked death!
But, as Jeremiah recalled to mind, with death before and behind and beside him:
Lamentations 3:22–25, 31–32
The LORD’S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,
For His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I have hope in Him.”
The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the person who seeks Him.
…
For the Lord will not reject forever,
For if He causes grief,
Then He will have compassion
According to His abundant lovingkindness.
Even in the throes of death and despair, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the lovingkindness of God. Even in grief and darkness, the LORD’s compassions never fail. Even in sorrow and sadness, the LORD is our portion, our help, our sufficiency. We wait for Him, our King in whom we have victory over death.
Come, Lord Jesus. Come as the Resurrection and the Life. Come crush death once for all, and reign forever and ever. Amen.
Dedicated to the Kim family.