I Hate Death

by Zeke Flores

I hate death.

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Yet, it's all around us. My office is in a building across the street from a city cemetery, and it's not unusual to see mourners sitting and weeping at the graves of their loved ones days, weeks, and even months after they've passed from this life. Lately, I've seen a middle-aged woman and a young girl simply sitting beside the grave of a high school athlete who recently died suddenly and tragically. They are his mother and girlfriend, two women from different periods of life who loved the same boy and now have lost him to the enemy. It's heartbreaking to watch their grief.

Yeah, I hate death.

So does Jesus, so much so that He left heaven, became a man, and experienced a torturous, painful death so that He could release you and me from its icy grip. Oh, as humans, we still die, but death has no lasting effects on His people. It is merely the gateway into a fuller life. Now, instead of the fear of dying, we have the hopeful anticipation of an existence so full of life that death will never again invade it. Death will die! And we will live!

"Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives" (Hebrews 2:14-15).