Title:- Dancing on Your Casket!
1 Corinthians 15:54 "Death is swallowed up in victory."
One critic has accused the metaphysical poet John Donne (he died March 31st in 1631) of being obsessed with death after his beloved wife Anne passed away. Maybe so, for shortly before his own demise, John obtained an urn, his own burial shroud, and an artist. Then, wrapping himself in the shroud, he posed standing atop the urn and had the artist draw a nice charcoal sketch of him doing so. This macabre piece of artwork stayed at John’s bedside throughout his final illness. Obsessed or not, in his poem, ‘Death Be Not Proud’, he pens these marvellous lines
‘Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:’
Now John may have been an Anglican minister simply because it was a reasonable living (in those days anyway) and he may have held, shall we say, some interesting theological thoughts!, but he at the very least knew this, ‘DEATH SHALL DIE!’
Friends, everything this side of heaven dies, that is, in effect, becomes severed in relationship to us. Dreams, words, sons, daughters, wives, jobs, careers, teeth, and eventually even the flesh that holds them all together, shall dissolve and disintegrate. These are facts, and are best faced, head on. The scripture says, ‘Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, For that is the end of all men; And the living will take it to heart.’ (Ecclesiastes 7:2). In light of this text then, maybe Reverend Donne wasn’t as bananas as we might have thought after all?
My dear sojourner suffering under the fear of death, even suffering in the valley of the shadow of death, may I tell you that I agree with John Donne. “Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:.....’DEATH SHALT DIE.’” so, if you want rest today my friend, then you must first mock death, go on! Do it! Then laugh at it and choose to lay off its proud and heavy disfiguring yoke and then, why not place across your chaffed neck, the gentle healing, loving and leading, humble yoke of the all-conquering Christ; for Death truly has been swallowed up in VICTORY! Yes it has! So, finish off the delightful deed of mocking death today then, by taking your Palm branches and standing on one leg atop your own urn of death, and wave them wildly. Why not get one of your friends to then take a picture of you, dancing like a loon atop your murky old casket once filled with gloom! And then this very morning and every morning from now on, choose to LIVE!
Listen: - so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:21-6:1
Pray: - Lord, I believe that in the future life, nothing dies. Dreams, relationships, ideas, desires, pets, and other companions, shall never die. There shall be no fear of loss, and we shall at last be free to enjoy life! But Oh My Father, O my dear Jesus, help me to LIVE in this life and to live well, without the fear of death. Amen and amen!
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