Death: not What It Seems

Death: Not What It Seems

 

          We are born to die. From the minute we draw our first breath we are on our way to our demise. We are born! We live! We die! It’s over! That’s all there is!

          No one will dispute that this is the way it is and this is the way it has been since the beginning of the world…but is this the way it has to be? Just because this is all we have ever known does not mean that this is the way it will always be…or that this is the way it was meant to be...does it?

          We have always known that this earth is not our home. At some future date, at a time unknown to us and in a way unappealing to us, our Father will call us home, to Heaven, to be with Him.

          How do we know? We have been told by our earthly father who was told by his father who was told by his father, etc. Is this enough to convince us?

          Many of the things that our grandfathers believed in his time to be true have been proven to be just superstition…or old wives tales. Could this be one of them?

          “No,” you object. “There has to be more to it than that. People do die. No one has lived forever.” You ask, “How can that be explained except as death?”

          I say that death is a false belief…one that we need to understand. Something like when our forefathers first stepped foot on American soil, there was no electric signboard flashing bright lights saying, “WELCOME.” Electricity was an unknown quality at that time. If anyone had suggested that one day the whole coast would be ablaze with electric lights, neon signs, he would probably be cast in the stockade for his stupidity. As much electricity was on the beach when our forefathers landed as there is today. It could have been used then the same as we use it today. However, they were not aware of electricity or how to use it. Should that keep us from accepting, appreciating, and using it?

          Science has advanced a number of new ideas, and man has seen how foolish his former thinking was. We think, just because religion has accepted a story, and it has been taught for a long time and taught by honest men, that it has to be true. We need to realize that religion, like science, can find new Truth. Don’t hold to an old thought only because that is the way you were raised. To accept a new insight is to advance in your faith.

          Let us suppose:

You have a daughter sharing a taxi to the airport with another girl. The girls are about the same build, both blue eyed. Honey blond, and wearing jeans and sweat shirts. Suppose there is a fatal accident involving the taxi and a fast moving truck. In our story the driver of the taxi is killed at the scene. The girls are rushed to different hospitals. One is dead on arrival and the other is in a coma. Not a pretty picture. But wait…as this is a true to life story…it gets worse.

          I am visiting in your house when they bring you the tragic news of your daughter’s death from the identification found in her purse. You are devastated!

          Trying to console you I tell you, “There is no death! You are only suffering from a belief.” You would think I was an insensitive monster and you would be justified in ordering me out of your house.

          Before I leave, there is another urgent phone call from the opposite hospital. The second girl has come out of her coma and has asked for you. As you are in no shape to drive and I have not left yet, you forgive me for my outrageous comment, and allow me to drive you to the hospital to learn why you were called,

          We speed to the hospital to find…a miracle! Your beloved daughter, bruised and shaken, but otherwise ok.

          In the emergency of the accident, saving a life was top priority. The girl’s purses were incidental. Through error each purse had gone to the hospital with the wrong girl, causing the confusion in identification.

          You are now ecstatic with joy!

          You have gone from abject anguish to ecstatic jubilant celebration in a matter of a few hours. Why? What made you sad? What made you shout for joy? Nothing has actually changed.

          When you were suffering grief over the death of your daughter, she was NOT dead. Yet, you suffered. Grievously! It was not her death that caused you to suffer; she had never died. It was merely your belief in her death. Have I proved my point?

          I could say the same thing to the second set of parents as they look into the casket, grieving with the belief in the death of their beloved daughter. While their daughter is dead, in the casket, buried, lost from sight, there is no difference. Death is no more real in the dead and already buried than it is in the mistaken identity.

          It sounds cruel to tell someone that is hurting that there is no basis for their pain. Death has always been with us. We have reason to fear the grim reaper. He comes unexpectedly…without warning…bringing anguish, pain, and despair. What does belief have to do with it? All good questions that need good answers.

          The devil and death are cut from the same cloth. They are the product of the imagination of people who had to find some explanation for the things that they do not comprehend.

          Jesus did not give credibility to death. It is because of his understanding that death was only a mistaken belief. Knowing this allowed him to raise the widow’s son, the young girl, Lazarus, and Himself from the tomb. All had passed the threshold from the known to the unknown: from life as we know it; to what we know as death. Jesus was not intimated by sin in any form and that includes death.

          He assured us that his Father is not a God of the dead, but of the living. Jesus moreover told us that what he did then we can do likewise today. He did not limit healing sickness and raising the dead to his time frame, so many years ago. Nor did he limit healing sickness and raising the dead to himself and his 12 disciples. Jesus expected us to overcome death as he did, just as easily and as confidently.

          How did Jesus accomplish the raising of the dead? Just as easily as he healed sickness, quieted pain, defeated sin. He knew his Father intimately. That knowledge revealed God as Love and Life.

          Love never harms His own. God has unconditional Love for His children and we are His children simply by being alive.

          Life never dies. There is no imperfection in perfection and no death in Life. The two cannot exist together. One is reality, the other is false, imagination, superstition. You decide which is which.

          Our need is to become acquainted with our Father. Then we too can understand that we have nothing to fear. Our Father will protect us from all imagination.

          When God is for us who or what can be against us? Not Death!

                                     

           1,236 words                         Loretta Ellen Edwards