Death should be expected. After all, everyone who lives will one day die. It’s a natural part of life. Like births, marriages and taxes.
And yet, when death occurs, it is usually unexpected. A girl walking across a road is hit by a car. A man goes into the backyard and has a heart attack. A baby dies in the womb. Death may be natural but it still takes us by surprise, even if we try to prepare for it. In reality, we find the “naturalness” of death unnatural.
I think it’s because secretly we know that death is not the end. It is too unthinkable that a person should exist one day and be gone the next. It is too cruel that a father—a wife, a brother, a daughter—should be snuffed out, vanishing into oblivion. The unnaturalness of death is an indicator that this should not be. This is wrong.
But how can we know that death is not the end? How can we know whether there is life—of some sort—beyond the grave? Simple: we can know because a man came back from the dead to tell us.
The Bible tell us all about this man. His name was Jesus and he lived about 2,000 years ago. The Bible outlines in detail the circumstances of his life, his death by execution and his subsequent rising to life again three days later. It speaks of the people who saw him, spoke with him and touched him after he rose. But, more importantly, it tells us what Jesus’ resurrection means for us: it means that we, too, will one day rise from the dead.
This is great news! Death is not the end. We will continue to exist. We will see loved ones again who were parted from us in death.
But it is also bad news: we will come face to face with our creator and judge—the one who has the power to raise us from the dead, as he too was raised. We will come face to face with Jesus and will have to give an account to him of our lives.
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Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
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