Wednesday, September 9. I’m a bit pensive because it’s been ten years to the day since my father died. He wasn’t particularly old (74) but he’d been afflicted by a series of health issues that gradually overcame his ability to ward them off. If he were alive today, he would have been a prime candidate to isolate from the Peking Lung Pox.

A couple of years ago I wrote about witnessing his last moments. I thought today was appropriate to post it again, but this time on my blog with some modest revisions.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, I stood in a hospital room by my father’s bedside. He was alive, but only because of modern technology, which did the work his body could no longer do. Any intervention at this point simply delayed the inevitable.

With his approval, we decided to take him off life support. My mother, my siblings and I watched as technicians removed the tubes, fluids, and devices connected to his body. For a moment everything remained as it was: his breathing, the beeping of the monitors, the sterile air, the hum of the fluorescent lights, the white sheets, the quiet bustle of the medical staff.

And then his vitals began to sink, green numbers on a black screen retreating toward zero. I stood near his head, watching the inevitable approach. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing I could do. This was it. Within moments, my dad would cross that razor thin line between life and death.

When he did, it was quiet. There was no struggle, no last gasps clawing for air, no final words. The life simply went out of his eyes, as though someone had accidentally hit the “off” switch. He was gone.

What my dad experienced is normal. Every one of us will have to endure that involuntary moment when our lungs draw a final breath, our heart gives a final contraction, our eyes go dark, and we are separated from life as we know it. That moment that has come for millions and millions of people is coming for you. For me. It is inescapable.

The ultimate enemy of life is death. None of us will get out of here alive, as the macabre saying goes. Death is the undefeated champion over life, having the last word, batting one-thousand, dancing, as it were, on our graves. No one beats death.

Or do they?

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus, betrayed by a friend, exchanged for a rebel, beaten by soldiers, mocked by the crowds, nailed to a cross — this Jesus died and was buried in a sealed tomb. But death was destroyed when God raised Christ from the dead and brought “life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

If that’s true, then death is not permanent but temporary. It has been defanged, declawed and leashed. It has been overthrown, vanquished and obliterated. Jesus crushed it. Paul says,

For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

This accomplishment is so central to the Christian faith that Paul writes elsewhere, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith … If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:13-14).

This, to me, is one of the strongest arguments for the reality of the Christian faith. Paul acknowledges that the entire edifice of Christian belief falls apart if its most inconceivable and improbable claim did not happen. If Jesus didn’t come back to life, he says, then his followers are to be pitied — pitied as hopeless fools for clinging to a pointless and powerless belief.

But Paul, the apostles, and hundreds of other eye witnesses say it did happen.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

Jesus defeated sin and death, and by His life, we also can live.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?
     Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

My dad knew this and it’s what makes his loss bearable. According to Scripture, he is face-to-face with his Savior, Jesus Christ. Death took him from us for the moment, but there is coming a day when we will meet again. That’s the hope we have.

A final thought. Those numbers retreating toward zero as his vitals failed in the hospital room? We may not be plugged into some device that visualizes our vitals right now, but our numbers, visible or not, are retreating toward zero all the same.

The Nickelback video below illustrates the concept perfectly. It also asks the question, “Is it worth savin’ me?” Jesus says yes.

Death is coming for us, but it doesn’t have to be final.

Photo credit: Dave Olsson