I am compelled to write about a difficult topic: death. This is a hard piece to write. A few weeks ago as I was looking forward to Easter, I learned Easter is on April 16, 2017, which will coincide with the ten year commemoration of the 32 people murdered at my Alma mater Virginia Tech. It will be a day where Christians need to proclaim the life available from Jesus, the One who rose from the grave.
Having grown up in a TV generation, early on there was exposure to the reality of death, but it was not personal. Gradually through my early years, death became a reality to face. My first close confrontation with death was when I was a sophomore in high school. There was a student in my Algebra class my freshman year who was a truly nice guy, and we were casual friends. One day after school our sophomore year, he went to his friend’s house and smoked much pot. Then he told his friend he was going to borrow his mini-bike. The friend told him “no,” stating he was in no condition to ride it. But he insisted, wrestled the motorized vehicle away, and went riding. Going down a street perpendicular to my house, he ran into a poll at top speed. I was doing homework, and I heard an ambulance. When I went out, paramedics were frantically doing things huddled over his body. He died on the way to the hospital within the hour. Weeks of mourning followed at Falls Church High School.
Also at my high school, there was a teacher I liked who died of cancer. Yet during my four extremely active years at Virginia Tech, death seemed distant. Yet even at Tech, a haven for me in sense, death did not disappear into history books. For example, a fellow Resident Advisor’s dad died. That same year a freshman died in a caving accident two days before I was scheduled to give a talk on caving safety.
I will not get into my testimony here, however I want to state it was less than one year after graduating from Virginia Tech when I received Jesus, truly believing He had been resurrected from the dead, and that He was the way to everlasting life.
Since becoming a follower of Jesus, having been far more involved in the lives of people, I have been exposed to many friends and church family members physically dying. In my first church, Kathy was a person everyone loved. She was in our church singles group. She and I once attended a baseball game, and I had such a fun time. In April of 1996, only in her late twenties, she died in a plane crash overseas. I had so much trouble doing work the next day.
I could continue on regarding the death of friends and family members.
I could continue on regarding the death of friends and family members.
Why does God allow people to die? Why does God allow such tragedy? From the start, death is not what God wanted for people. The first two people God created had the opportunity to choose the “tree of life.” God gave them a complete invitation to eat the fruit of that tree (Genesis 2:16). However they disobeyed God. They indulged in the fruit of the one tree which they were unable to handle, the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” which God had forbid them from eating from. Know that the sin of Adam and Even had nothing to do with apples or sex. The Bible does not say what kind of fruit was on the trees, and there was a spiritual nature to those trees whatever fruit was on there. And the tree was not a metaphor for sex. God had given a general blessing after His creation of human beings to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28). Multiplying involves you know what. The sin was the disobedience to God by Adam and Eve. Disobeying God, they brought about the separation between God and people, and the result of being separated from the Creator of all things is not only physical death, but also spiritual death. Death is not what God wants for people, yet God granted Adam and Eve free will to obey or disobey Him. Their disobedience brought about a state of hardship, pain, and physical death for the history of human beings to the present. Yet God started working immediately to save people from spiritual death.
Thus we all have the opportunity to make a choice today regarding having spiritual life. All people still physically die, with few exceptions such as Elijah. Yet eternal life is offered by Jesus, and any person can receive or not. Jesus made eternal life possible by dying on a cross. Seems odd a death would bring an opportunity for life. Brace yourself for this: Jesus was Emmanuel, God with us. Trinity is the term we use frequently today, a term which identifies Jesus for who He is, God the Son. Being divine, God the Son allowed Himself to be crucified! Death was experienced by Jesus, who never had to die. Jesus willingly suffered death to be the substitute for people. The consequence of sin is death, yet Jesus willingly took our place, because He loves all people. Jesus died physically and spiritually, and it is the Sacrifice of all history for the spiritual salvation of people.
Even when a follower of Jesus dies, we can still mourn. For example, after the Virginia Tech murders, I cried and wailed. God never desired death; it goes against the creation of God. And even if the person is in heaven, we will miss them for a short period of time. Yet when someone has been saved by Jesus, we can have the assurance the person is not dead, rather in heaven with God. In 1996 was the only time I was with someone who died, and it was my dear friend, Grandma. I had done much to help Grandma in the last five years of her life. My grandma went much of her life not opening up to Jesus, yet in her 70’s, in the wake of my grandpa’s death, Grandma believed in Jesus. I have never seen Jesus change someone so much in a short period of time. When she passed away, I was the only other person with her besides God. During her final minutes here, I held her hand and sang a song to her about how we would meet in heaven. Once she was physically dead, I cried hard. I even mourned in my heart for several months. Yet deep in my heart I had the peace she is in heaven.
Jesus Christ died on a cross for the forgiveness of sins. God the Son, Creator of the universe and the entire spiritual realm, died, yet there was a purpose in His death. He was the substitutionary atonement for the forgiveness of sins of anyone. And then He was resurrected and is alive in heaven today. If you believe in Jesus, you will have eternal life. You will still physically die, if Jesus does not return first, yet your soul will be immediately ushered into the kingdom of God, and you will be with our loving God for all eternity. Jesus Christ is Risen! He wants you to join Him for all eternity. You need to believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord.
Hunter Irvine
