The Sting of Death

I had plans for my next post, but two recent events have changed those plans, one of which I have decided to focus on now. My Grampa just died this morning. As I stood, looking at his now empty "tent" laying on his deathbed, my Grammy sitting at the head, holding his arm, tears streaming down her face from red eyes, I thought of the words of scripture which speak to the powerless nature of death for those who are in Christ. I Corinthians speaks of this specifically in chapter 15, the resurrection chapter, "Where, O death, is you victory? Where, O death, is you sting?" (v. 55). However, as I stood in that room today, I saw and felt the sting of death, or what remains of it. Ultimately, the victory is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ (see verse 56). But what remains of the sting of death is the pain and sorrow we are left with, who wittness death. In I Thessalonians we are not told not to grieve, but to grieve with hope. But hope in what? The immediate answer is hope in Christ, in God, in Heaven and in the glory God recieves from th outworking of His Soveriegn plan. But more simply, the common denominator of each of these is the fact that it is not this world and this life that ultimately matters. We were created by God for God. Earlier in the same chapter in I Corinthians, verse 50 reads that "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable".
I was also reminded of some of the thoughts of Mr. Dan Cruver on pain, sorrow, and death. He spoke on death as a reminder of the implications and gravity of sin. He said that death should absolutely grieve and pain us. It should cause us to turn to ourselves and remind ourselves that we have the same disease within us that will lead one day to the same consequence. And finally, death is only the final ultimatum of a multitude of consequenses we face each moment for our sin.
So I ask myself again, "Where is the sting of death?" It is here on this earth and in my heart. And it is real. The tears, puffy eyes, tight throat and achy gutt are not fake conjured feelings we have made up. They are given to us by the God who made us. "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law" (verse 56) and sin is with us each day of our lives here. But, "thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 57) who God sent to accomplish what the Law could not (Ro. 8:3). The sting reminds us that however real and powerful it is, it is only temporary, that we have the victory, the hope of eternity, and a God who has effectively swallowed up death in His victory, the resurrection of His Son, Jesus Christ.