Love’s Voice That Kills Death

I do not deal with death.

There are not deals to be made,

No transactions to tackle,

No agreements to accomplish.

So, death is not therapeutically traversed nor philosophically positioned.

It is not accepted or acceptable.

It is not a part of life.

It is the exact opposite of life.

It has no mercy on me, it does not listen to or care about my fears or tears.

It will not allow me to come to terms and I do not care to negotiate any terms

With such a demon.

Demon Death, Destructive Death, Dead Death.

I see all acceptance or acquiescence as rather sophisticated denial, and like Becker’s

Denial of Death I chronicle how we destroy our world, ironically, tragically, by

Running away from destruction.

My wife and I held my mother’s hands last year as my mother breathed her last, these hands

That held mine from my first wobbling steps.

This death I am to accept?

The children of Israel decapitated by an invasion of terrorists.

This death I am to accept?

The children of Palestine crushed by the bombs of retaliation and self-defense.

This death I am to accept?

I do not deal with death.

Paul says “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.”

Now that’s more like it. That’s seeing through the smoke.

Death is my enemy. And not just mine.

There is no fleeing. Again, the denial is destructive.

There is only fighting.

And so what weapon can I use?

Here’s what I do.

I go back and deep into the Tomb with Lazarus, all wrapped in burial cloths to await nothing.

And then a Voice alarms and alerts me,

Explodes in sound waves whose reverberations

Enliven my blood cells, jump starts my heart and awakens my brain.

He shouted “Lazarus! Come Out!”, and when Lazarus stirred the universe stood still.

Something has changed.

Yes, I know, resuscitation is not resurrection.

But do you see Who it is who did the calling out?

Do you hear whose Voice this is?

It is the One who loved, and whose love did the killing of death when he was executed and in it all only loved.

What is my weapon?

It is solely Jesus Christ and his love.

It is not my psychologizing that denies or my retaliations that destroy.

I fight with this love.

I love with this fight.

I do not deal with death. God does in Christ Jesus.

And the world is reborn.

By saying I resist death, I fight death with the love of Jesus Christ, does not mean I don’t know that death is a part of life, the thing that happens to live things and that knowing this is helpful.

It’s just that help is not all I need.

What I need is resurrection.

Not my resurrection, mind you, but love’s resurrection.

I do not need to go on in order to go on.

I need love to go on in order to go on.

I need love to win.

And we have been told a story that is just too good not to be true.

In this story of Jesus, life does not defeat death.

Love does.

Death is not accepted. It is engaged and demolished.

By love.

Not friendship love, not lover’s love, not familial love but rather

Self-giving and self-sacrificial love.

The kind that Jesus did.

The kind that Jesus is.

The resurrection of Jesus does not mean my life goes on, but that his life goes on and his life is this love.

And that is where I…..live.
I have a friend who sings people into their death. She is a music therapist who is privileged to be with folks in many places of hurt that need healing and one of those places is dying.

And so at bedside she plays and sings and as she writes, “has faith…that God is good in heaven and earth.” She also writes that in facing death “we can love hard, feel deeply and embrace life – including death – with open arms.”

This, my friends, is love.

This is not life over death, this is love over death.

I do not deal with death.

Jesus Christ does.

And love wins.