Death hurts. I’m not talking about the act of dying but the loss of someone you love when they die. It hurts when you lose someone. There is a swirling of emotions that we often describe as emptiness, loss, sadness, grief, etc. These feelings often impact us so much that it feels as if our physical bodies actually ache. For those of you who have lost someone you love you know exactly what I am referring to. The rest of you will inevitably know this feeling as death comes to everyone in due time.
“And just as people are appointed to die once, and then to face judgment” – Hebrews 9:27
Why does death hurt so much? Death is unnatural. God did not create humankind to experience death. God created man to multiply and fill the earth, to rule over the earth and everything in it, and to be image bearers of Himself, but He did not create humankind to experience death (Genesis 1:28-30). Mankind would only experience death when sin was introduced. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the world and along with sin, death (Genesis 1:17-3:24).
”You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.” – Genesis 1:17
The first death in history is recorded when Cain kills his brother Abel (Genesis 4:1-16). Imagine the confusion and grief Adam and Eve must have went through upon finding out about Abel’s death. They had never seen a human die, and now Abel was lost to them. They could not see him, talk to him, or look forward to continuing to see him grow and have a family of his own. We thousands of years later are very familiar with death, but this was a first for Adam and Eve.
Death hurts and it is normal and expected to grieve those we lose. All of Israel grieved for the loss of their leader Moses (Deuteronomy 34:8). David grieved over the loss of a child (2 Sam 12:16-17). Grief is a natural response to death. When we go through the experience of losing someone, we love it is an unnatural experience that God never intended for humankind to experience which is why we hurt with our whole being.
God may not have created us for death, but in His sovereign will He has us experience it. Thankfully God has not stopped there, but He has given us hope through Jesus Christ. Christ came to die for humankind to reverse the effects of sin and conquer death. One day Christ will return and put an end to death. All of humanity will be resurrected.
”Those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake- some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence.” – Daniel 12:2
Christ will conquer death once and for all and on that day, we will say, “O death, where is your victory?”, “O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Until that day death will continue to hurt and be a constant reminder of the power that sin has over all of humanity. Those of us in Christ will grieve as well, but we will grieve as those who have hope.
”Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14
