Thursday, April 9, 2009

Dead Man Walking

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 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 is undeniable.

I think death is unnatural. A bold claim, seeing that everything dies. Yet, my heart abhors the circumstance, and tells me it's not the way it is supposed to be. There are very few who can embrace those cold arms 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? To the icy atheist, such a thought would be nothing but emotionalism, and he or she would have a case, except that... Jesus Christ overcame death!

Almost 2000 years ago, the unnatural (read: not in sinc with nature's creator) essence of death came into sharp relief. Death was shown to be an abnormal imposition upon the created, who had adopted the unnaturalness of opposition to and independence from the Creator. For those in sinc with God, life is the natural condition. Those who follow Christ, and who trust him as their shepherd and Lord, become the living transforming. No more can their journey be announced condemnedly by their tormentor with the wretched cry, "dead men walking."