Death Bad

Our culture has gone out of its way to hide death. One still hears stories of wakes at home with the body present, where the family and friends prepared the body themselves. Now we have a vast industry to take care of our dead.

Did you know that the city of San Francisco has no cemeteries within the city limits? The city fathers thought this would help the city grow, so they moved all the dead to the suburbs!

We don't use the words "dead" or "died." We say the deceased "passed away." They've gone "to a better place."

We say that "death is just a part of life."

Ironically, we glorify death in our portrayal of it in the media, especially movies. Scenes of death give us an immediate rush, but we don't have to suffer the long term consequences. Long term exposure to scenes of violent death harden us further to deaths presence.

But as Christians, we must not let the culture carry us along. We must return to a basic fact about death - it is bad. It was not God's intention for us to die. It is the result of sin.

And nothing will be ok until death is finally done away with. Jesus' resurrection is the foretaste of death final absolute defeat, but it will only be finally gone when Jesus returns and the whole Creation is renewed.