Death Is Unnatural

Dead, yet still breathing: that's the condition of every human being at birth. We all exist in the inescapable shadow of an inevitable conclusion. It takes that reality, on average, about 70 or so years to catch up with us, but catch up with us it does. We produce pills, manufacture equipment, and develop disciplines that attempt to extend our dance in the shadows, but the end comes, and its finality claps like a slamming door.

Death is unnatural. 

That's a bold claim, considering that everything dies. Yet, my heart abhors the circumstance, and tells me it's not the way it's supposed to be. Very few, in fact, can embrace the icy arms of death without a revulsive shudder. Maybe our collective gag reflex is meant to tell us something. Could there be that much truth in our common experience of the common? To the atheist, such a thought would be nothing but emotionalism lightly papering over the awareness of death.

…and he or she would have a case, except that… Jesus Christ overcame death!

Almost 2000 years ago, the unnaturalness of death came into sharp relief. Death was shown to be abnormal to the Creator's order, an imposition upon the created after they were created. That imposition was justice dispensed upon those not created to die nor created through death, but who had adopted the unnaturalness of opposition to and independence from their Creator. For those in sinc with God, life is the natural condition.

The naturalness of life is restored to those who follow Christ and who trust him as their shepherd— though they die, yet will live!