Oh Death Where Is Thy Sting?

Yesterday, September 6, 2011, my brother Johnny went home to be with our Lord. Although I am grieving his departure from this life, I am celebrating his new life.

Johnny had Downs Syndrome. He never matured as most of us do but yet he matured much more so than so many. During the last weeks and months of his life, he kept saying he was tired and that he wanted to go home and he wanted to see Jesus. Johnny’s small body was gradually shutting down and he was in and out of the hospital. He couldn’t understand why he had to go through this, why he had to experience the pain; but he knew to cry out to the one who could heal him. He looked forward to being with Jesus and he knew Jesus alone could deliver him from his suffering. Well, yesterday Jesus did deliver him.

It’s hard to think I will never see Johnny again as he was; short, childlike, with the typical mongoloid features found in those who have Downs Syndrome, but the thought that keeps coming to my mind is Johnny saying “if you could only see me now!” Johnny has been resurrected in newness of life; A newness that will never ever again experience pain or suffering. For that I am most grateful. I believe that when I reach those pearly gates, my big brother will be there waiting for me.

⁵⁰ Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”   ⁵⁵ “ O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”  ⁵⁶ The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. ⁵⁷ But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.                                    -Corinthians 15:50-58

¹ What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? ² Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ³ Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
⁵ For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. ¹¹ Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace. –Romans 6:1-14

Friend, if you don’t know the Lord Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, why wait? Why take a chance? Please, I beg you; cry out to the one, the only one, who has power over sin and death.