Death has been Defeated
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Christian ought to live in no fear of death. Our Lord has defeated death. The Christian lives everyday embracing the fullness of life because we know that natural death is simply a doorway into our eternal, even fuller abundant life.
Because “our Savior Jesus Christ destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel” (2 Tm 1:10). Our boast is not in anything we could possibly do to either fix or heal the human condition. Fallenness and sin and suffering in human life has a remedy: His name is Jesus Christ. His symbol is the Cross. His Panacea is the divine life of grace. The Christian faith is ALL about life!
This is why the Christian doesn’t fear death. In fact, the most devout of Christians live in such a way as to even welcome the embrace of natural death. The Christian knows that “[we] can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it” (Chesterton, Orthodoxy). In other words, we can only triumph over death with Christ by daily entering into a dying to self. Detaching ourselves from all worldly created attachments ensures that we are fully attached to the one who is the source of our life and hope Himself.
We have to be assured that “God formed us to be imperishable; the image of his own nature he made us” (Wisdom 2:23). Death was not part of His divine plan for us. Death is the greatest injustice to inflict the human person. When a person dies, they don’t get liberated from their bodies. That’s a false way to look at death. Instead, death means that we are now separated from our bodies and are not fully human. This is why the resurrection of our bodies at the end of time will take place. God wants to restore the justice owed to the human person. Whatever our eternal state, heaven or hell, God still loves us so much that He wants our bodies to restored to our souls because that is the natural state of man.
The Christian has the powerful hope of being able to say to our God, “LORD, you brought my soul up from Sheol; you let me live, from going down to the pit” (Psalm 30:4). Not only did Jesus destroy death for Himself, He also enabled us to enter into eternal happiness of Heaven with Him. The thief on the cross, in the face of death, saw the vast glimmer of this hope and in that moment, history saw that “a dying man asked a dying man for eternal life” (Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ). And Christ granted it of him. This is incontrovertible proof. Christ has the absolute power over life and death.
This is why Paul exhorts us to run the race of Salvation in all aspects of our life. In fact, he tells us with urgency: “complete it now, so that your eager willingness may be matched by your completion of it out of what you have” (2 Cor 8:11). In short, Paul is giving us a command here: live as if you are going to die. Live ready to see our Lord. Or, as St. Rose would say, “Live so as not to fear death. For those who live well in the world, death is not frightening but sweet and precious” (St. Rose of Viterbo).
Christ’s power over death is our hope. To those who don’t have faith, though, it is a stumbling block and blasphemy. That’s why, even during Jesus’s time, in the face of His resurrection miracles, we saw that“[At that] they were utterly astounded” (Mark 5:42). Yet, we who have received the Gospel ought not to be surprised. Death is not the end of life, merely the cessation of material life. “After death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day” (CCC 989).
This is our great hope: abundant life on earth and eternal life in Heaven.
Deus Benedicat
AMEN