O Death, Where Is Your Sting?

Readings:
Job 29
I Corinthians 15:50-58

Focus:
I Corinthians 15:55: "O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?"

One of the greatest things about Christianity is that even death has no ultimate power over us. For Christians, death is not the end, but instead a passage into newer, better life with God.

In C.S. Lewis's last Narnia book, The Last Battle, the characters are caught in a situation that is increasingly bleak and hopeless. Nothing goes their way, and ultimately they are captured and thrust into certain death.

But suddenly they find themselves in the most wonderful beauty they have ever seen, dressed in the most splendid clothes, surrounded by laughing and happy friends. And they set off to find Aslan, the Christ figure of those books, and every moment things are better and happier.

I first read that book when I was 20 years old, and from that time on, I lost all fear of death. It was a splendid metaphor for the Christian reality of resurrection after death. Jesus has conquered death. For us, death has no victory. Death has no sting.