The Fraility of Life

Yesterday I went to a viewing for a highschool girl who was a co-worker with my roommate Bethany. She was hit by a train earlier this week...

I have never seen a dead person before, and it has stirred a lot of thoughts in my mind... some good, some uncomfortable...

Life is such a strange phenomenon. It is trapped within us for such a short while, and then upon the damage of our bodies, it can suddenly leave. A transient value, untouchable, that somehow remains attached to that which is seen.... for only a little while. A period of time, ordained before its beginning...

What is left behind is a shell, hardly recognizable, and an expression, frozen in the moment life left behind.

It makes me think of Jesus and his followers. When he died, all hope must have left those who had put their trust in him. When you look at a body that is dead, the void of life seems to steal all thoughts of hope and life and love. It just lays there. There is nothing to that person anymore, beyond what is seen... and what defines a person, is often entirely what is not visible to the eye. Those looking at Jesus after his death must have been crushed with thoughts of hopelessness. Here was a man they had placed the hope of their souls in.. and yet, there he lay, absent of the life they had died to follow.

For days, pondery must had wracked at their hearts, begging them to question the very things they had finally found. But, all was not lost... for in a few days, their beloved leader came back to life.

Who has the authority to order life to leave, or demand it's return?
None but God. Indwelt with the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ declared his power in an event that displayed authority unknown when he returned life into his body, and rose from the dead.

As I looked at that little girl, laying in her casket, makeup covering the doctor's attempts to stitch up her face, I realized that she had no authority over death. As I looked through pictures of her with her friends, I realized she never saw it coming. And as I looked at her parents, I knew they had no hope, for there was nothing they could do. There was nothing anyone could do to capture life and give it back to this beautiful little girl. It was finished, life had left her.

Our God reigns. Our God reigns, forever His kingdom reigns.
Death has been defeated.

That which holds the greatest authority on this earth, that which entered into humanity through Adam, that which is inescapable by even the most powerful human being, death.... has been defeated.

I don't have words yet for the emotion which fills me. But I believe that its something close to... hope.