THE LAST WORD

DAY 95:  In the last twelve months we have said goodbye to too many, comforted too many, grieved the loss of too many- and all too well know that we will grieve and comfort yet again.  It is the final price humanity pays for being human - death.

Yet death does not have the final say or how could we go on?

About this time last  year, as I was preparing our evening meal I received a phone call from a friend who had just witnessed her beloved father take his final earthly breath.  Death in all its merciless vengeance came in to claim its victory over a weak and frail body, helpless to flee from its clutching. With no regard for the love surrounding and clinging to this irreplaceable soul, death ripped life from this world leaving agony and loss standing at the bedside.  But they were not alone... because He is Risen, Hope stood beside them.

Only in that truth could my precious friend, in her pain and loss, look beyond the tomb to the life her father was now breathing freely after suffocation at death's hand.  The fullness of Christ's Passion found its complete fulfillment in her father: born in sin, redeemed by Christ, and now accepted as a son embraced in his Father's arms.

As in Jesus parable from Luke 12, each one of us will one day hear: "This very night your life will be demanded from you." But that is not the last thing we will hear.  For those who have fallen at the blood-pierced feet of Jesus, receiving a righteousness from Him offered freely in exchange for our sin, the final words to echo in our earthy envelope will be those of victory, not death: "Today you will be with me in Paradise."  

He is Risen - He is Risen Indeed.  
Death could not hold him - nor will it hold us. 


Day 97 of 365
Deuteronomy 31
Deuteronomy 32:1-27
Luke 12:8-34
Psalm 78:32-55
Proverbs 12:21-23

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