No one has to die

Lately, Netflix family movies have been carrying this theme of a family with a dead mother — and the children or husband adapting to life after the death. It has not been lost on my children, particularly on the five-year-old. He’s been asking me why people die, if all people grow up and die, if mommy will die, if he will die…

I realise he is coming of age, grappling with the big issues of living and dying, so as a loving protective mother, I have tried to reassure him that we will have a long fruitful life. I know I have no grounds to make such claims but you can’t blame a mom for wanting to shoo away fear.

Then I attended a funeral the other day. I informed the kids that a friend had died and we were going to bury him. When I got back home, Five again asked me if all people grow old and die. I explained that just as grass withers and dies, as beetles and flies die, every living thing has to die at some point. It’s the cycle of life.

“But mom I don’t want to die; I want to live forever,” he told me.
Interestingly at that moment, I was seated at the dining table, in the middle of my Bible study in the book of John chapter 6, where Jesus tells the people who were following him (after he fed them with a banquet of bread and fish) that He is the bread of life. He says he is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives eternal life; that those who look to him and believe in Him will live eternally and He will raise them up on the last day.

So I just told my son: “You can actually live forever. That’s why Jesus came — that we may live eternally.”

When we believe in Christ, we have crossed over from death to life. Jesus says those who believe in him will never die and those who die will live again. The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. It is salvation from from eternal death; it’s us inheriting the eternal kingdom of the Son with the Son. We don’t just get to live eternally. We get to live and reign with Christ forever and behold God forever.

You see when we wish — if only Adam hadn’t sinned… Now we have assurance to live in that place of no sin, no death, no rot, no degradation, no darkness, no more night… the lion lies with the lamb.

Our fear of death

Most of us are scared of dying because, well, we don’t know where we are going but also mostly because we don’t want to leave those we love and what we love behind. But we will die a physical death because we are organic matter. Yet God promises us that in Christ, we get to live beyond the grave.

We don’t have to worry about what happens after we die because our faith is in God and his promises to us that Christ will raise us up when we die to a better life, to a city with no foundations whose founder and builder is God, to be reunited with a great cloud of witnesses who went before us whose spirits are forever with the Lord.

We don’t have to be afraid of dying because Christ died and came back as the first fruit of the resurrection. His word is guarantee.

We don’t have to be afraid of dying as believers because we are not dying. We are already in eternal life, in this life and the next.

So while in our bravado we may say that all we care for is this life — there is no point worrying about what happens beyond the grave, we only want to live today for tomorrow we die — from children we can see that man desires life. Man fears dying. Adam and Eve were made to live eternally before sin shipwrecked the plan. If you doubt that we all are inbuilt with a desire to live, throw someone who thinks they want to die in water and see how they will struggle and fight to stay alive.

Now God offers us life. God’s promise is abundant life in His Son. Eternal life through the bread that came from heaven. That’s the Good News.

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.” John 5:24. We have passed from death to life.

Jesus in Revelation 1:18 told John that he holds the keys of death and the grave. No one has to die; and when we die we can live again.

Jesus promises access to the tree of life. He promises a crown of eternal life.

“The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.” Revelation 2:11

So I told my son that he needn’t be afraid of death because those who die in Christ go to Christ and he has promised that he will raise them up again and give them eternal life.

“Will it (eternal life) be the same as now?” He asked me.

How could it be? It will be so much better.

Later that night the twelve-year-old asked me what one has to do to go to heaven. “Just believe in Jesus.”

“Just that?” he asked me.

It’s too simple it’s hard to accept. We struggle to accept such a simple truth and a simple claim that Jesus is the way to the Father. We demand signs like Jews or great wisdom like the Gentiles to believe in Jesus. We seek to do great works (or even a few) to work our way into being saved.

But God asks of us nothing except that we will accept his gift of salvation.

Not sure you want to live forever? I’d trust the instincts of a five-year-old. He wants to go to heaven to give Jesus a hug 🙂 And I would definitely trust the God of the universe who offers this great salvation, an inheritance that does not fade.