Christians should never be at peace with death

Like sleep, the death of the Christian is temporary. I asked the children if they have ever been hurt by sleeping. No, no one had ever been hurt by sleeping. Have they, in fact, benefited by sleeping? Yes. I asked them, How many of you have gone to sleep and have never woken up? Interestingly, several raised their hands. I was able to refute that on the spot. No, you are awake now. You have woken up. And likewise, the Christian who enters into death will not remain there. It is a temporary condition for those who are in Christ.

Not many people know this, but Winston Churchill organized his own funeral to emphasize the hope of the resurrection. Churchill’s death was a sad time for Great Britain, and many eyes were weeping at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London as the funeral ended with the bugler playing Taps, those low, slow, mournful notes. And as the last note of Taps drifted off, to everyone’s surprise, the bugler sounded again—and it was the Reveille, which calls soldiers to the new day. And Churchill was using that to remind the mourners over him that he, in fact, was waiting to be summoned to the resurrection and the light of the glory of Jesus Christ. And so believers are asleep in the Lord. Our souls are with the Lord, but death itself will do us no harm. It will do us very much good.

And it will not be a permanent condition for those joined to the resurrected Jesus Christ. And Paul’s logic is that understanding the Bible’s teaching will give us great comfort, but let me say, on the other hand, never think that it will remove the reality of grieving in the face of death. Paul says, Christian, do not grieve like the unbeliever does, who does not have these reasons, without any hope. But he does not say, Christian, do not grieve, because the reality of death—that great enemy—is such that it is a great offense. It is a terrible grief to us. And the knowledge of the answer—valuable though it is—never think it will relieve all suffering or grief over those who have departed.

Now, the great example, of course, is the Lord Jesus. If anybody knew the answers to these problems, it was the Lord Jesus as he went to Bethany. And not only did Jesus know that Lazarus was going to be raised from the dead—he knew that he was going to do it in about five minutes. And after he talks to Martha on the road and makes that great statement—there he goes. But then he comes to the tomb itself, and we come to that shortest verse in the New Testament, John 11:35. And Jesus did not brush it aside. That is not what it says. It does not say, Jesus was not moved, because he knows the deal. It says that our Lord wept at the reality and the offense and the horror that death represents—those who were created by God for life. He is looking at death, and he sees behind it sin and Satan, who are the agents of it. And it is such a terrible, offensive thing. Christians should never be at peace with death. We should never be unaffected by death. Nor should we ever criticize others or feel reproach at the experience of grief for the loss of those we love, whether they are believers or not.¹

Richard D. Phillips