This past June, COVID-19 deaths in 2021 worldwide have surpassed the total number of COVID-19 deaths in all of 2020. Several countries continue to struggle with this horrible disease. Many of IDES’ mission partners are on the front lines distributing food, medicines, masks, and hope—the hope you only find in Christ Jesus.
Jesus shared that hope with Martha, Lazarus’ sister in John 11:25-26. The passage says:
“Jesus said to her, ’I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?’”
Jesus continues to be our hope no matter what trials or tribulations we face.
Former Asbury Seminary Professor, Dr. Alan Meenan, gives a wonderful illustration about life after death. He imagines twins talking to each other in the womb with one saying to the other, “Isn’t it wonderful to be alive? What a great thing the gift of life is.”
The twins then began to explore their life in the womb and soon discovered their mother’s cord. They began to sing, “How great is our mother’s love that she shares her own life with us.”
Weeks passed into months and the twins noticed that they were changing. “What does this mean?” asked the one. “It means that our stay in this world is drawing to a close,” says the other. “But I don’t want to go,” said the first. “I want to stay here always.”
“We have no choice,” answered the other, “but maybe there is life after birth.” “But how can that be,” responded the first, “will we shed our life’s cord? And how is life possible without it? Besides, we have seen evidence that there have been others here before us and they never came back to tell us that there is life after birth. No, this is the end.”
And so the one twin fell into deep despair and said, “If conception ends in birth what is the purpose of life in the womb? It is meaningless. Maybe there is no mother after all.”
“But there has to be,” protested the other, “However did we get here in the first place? And how are we still kept alive?”
“Have you ever seen our mother?” questioned the first. “Maybe she lives only in our minds. Maybe we made up the whole idea thinking that it would make us feel good.” So the last days in the womb were filled with deep questioning and fear.
Finally, the moment of birth arrived. And when the twins had passed from their world they opened their eyes and they cried for what they saw exceeded their wildest dreams.
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:51-57:
“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
When we are born, we cry and everyone else rejoices. But when we die, everyone else cries and those of us who have put our hope in Christ, rejoice. May we continue to put that hope in the One who gives us the victory over death!
- Jeff Greene, Director of Church Relations