7On the first day of the week we met to break bread together. Paul spoke to the people until midnight because he was leaving the next morning. 8In the upstairs room where we were meeting, there were a lot of lamps. 9A young man by the name of Eutychus was sitting on a window sill. While Paul was speaking, the young man got very sleepy. Finally, he went to sleep and fell three floors all the way down to the ground. When they picked him up, he was dead. 10Paul went down and bent over Eutychus. He took him in his arms and said, "Don't worry! He's alive." 11After Paul had gone back upstairs, he broke bread, and ate with us. He then spoke until dawn and left. 12Then the followers took the young man home alive and were very happy.
"Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die."
Makes absolutely no sense, but its perfectly true. How could our eternal perspective get so out of alignment? Well, It's hard to maintain a biblical meaning of life if we insist on an earthly meaning to death.
But it should be different for believers.
I've lost both my parents. Many of my friends are going through this loss now. Some day my children will lose me. It's the cycle of life...not particularly tragic because I'm a believer. Nevertheless, the cycle becomes packed with emotion when a loved one passes on. It's never been the case for me where I could say "well, dad died...let's eat!"
But, with Paul and Eutychus, the death...and resurrection...was barely worth mentioning. At least not when the food was hot and on the table.
Like breathing...
Death is a sentinel event even in the life of a believer. See? Even the way I just said that (in the "life" of a believer) infers that death is not the end of anything. It is merely another event. Yet, we insist on laboring over the finality of something that isn't really final.
I wonder why we can't escape it. Paul says in Corinthians 15 "My friends, I want you to know that our bodies of flesh and blood will decay. This means that they cannot share in God's kingdom, which lasts forever...We will all be changed, so that we will never die again. Our dead and decaying bodies will be changed into bodies that won't die or decay...Then the Scriptures will come true,
"Death has lost the battle...Where is its victory? Where is its sting?"
Sin is what gives death its sting, and the Law is the power behind sin. 57But thank God for letting our Lord Jesus Christ give us the victory!
Death is the one event in life we should look forward to because it overcomes the only thing that keeps believers out of heaven...a corrupt body.
The influence of sin is what gives us that lingering distorted fear of death. If I want to be real biblical about it I guess I should not say my parents died. I should say they changed...or maybe they just moved. I like that. Isn't it wonderful to be part of the Body of Christ?
Live boldly out there today.
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