The ultimate hope for Christians is in the finished work and future return of Jesus Christ.  Death is, in the eyes of most, the worst thing that can happen to humans—it is the cessation of life itself. But, because of Christ, death is not the destination for the Christian. Death is but a brief layover on a connecting flight that shortly arrives at eternal, joyful life in the presence of the God who created, saved, and loves us. 

I’m a little obsessed with death. 

I know that sounds weird—because it kind of is—but it’s true, and I figure I should be honest with you about it.

I’m at that weird age and stage of life (35-years-old with two young children) in which I vacillate between feeling invincible and inescapably fragile in a matter of hours. 

One day I may feel invincible, totally forgetting that death will one day come for me. And then the next, I may be physically and mentally aching, totally and painfully aware that one day my kids will bury me—hopefully well after they are adults themselves.

Death fascinates me for a whole host of reasons we won’t dive into today, but death becomes a front-burner topic in my mind around Holy Week each year for obvious reasons: the Savior of the world died and then de-clawed death by rising from the grave.

Obviously I don’t want to die anytime soon mostly for personal, selfish reasons like wanting to see my girls grow up or enjoy a long life with my wonderful wife. But I never fear death less than I do when I am reminded of Christ’s conquering of it, and how temporary it really is. 

Death and resurrection are baked into the fabric of the cosmos, and our greatest hope in life is the life that awaits us on the other side of death.

Death and Resurrection: Threads in the Fabric of the Cosmos

In his book The Hope of the Resurrection, Patrick Schreiner has an entire chapter dedicated to how the realities of death and resurrection are woven into the fabric of the whole cosmos. He writes specifically about how we can see the resurrection in our backyards (bolding mine):

For example, the life cycle of an oak tree is one of death to life. An oak tree doesn’t reach its peak acorn production until it is about fifty to eighty years old. Its acorns contain seeds protected by hard wood shells. When an acorn falls to the ground, it is alive. But once it is disconnected from the tree, the outer shell slowly dies so that the life in the seed can sprout through the shell. An acorn’s potential is never realized until part of it dies. After an corn sheds its outer shell, new life bursts through.

The Scriptures say that this reproduction cycle points to a resurrection reality. When asked about the resurrection, the apostle Paul turns to seeds to explain it (1 Cor. 15:35-38). People in the first century were just as shocked by the idea of the resurrection, so he uses nature as an analogy for it. He says we are foolish if we don’t recognize what you sow into the ground does not come to life unless it dies (1 Cor. 15:36). Paul asserts that our earthy bodies are like seeds planted in the ground. You are to your future resurrection body as an acorn is to an oak tree. Today you are an acorn, but the acorn must die. In the resurrection you will be an oak tree.

Schreiner also shares a great Martin Luther quote that reads, “Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.”

The movement from life to death to life-to-the-full is true of us, the pinnacle of God’s creation, and echoes of this truth are woven throughout the fabric of all of creation. How awesome is that? Even the acorns cry out to testify of God’s work in creation to bring about new creation. 

I have sometimes been a part of Holy Week services in different church communities that are somber in tone—like Good Friday services—and I’ve just always had a hard time play-acting grief when in such a service—for two reasons, I think.

First, it’s hard for me to pretend that Christ has died and not yet resurrected. It’s hard for me to get into that mode, I guess. I live in a post-Easter-Sunday world, and it’s hard for me to mentally transport myself to the night of Good Friday or the silence of that Saturday. 

Second, I guess I find myself asking the question, “Would I have rather Christ not died?” How could I genuinely grieve one of the most important elements of the greatest news the world has ever received?

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