For the days when death still stings...

Life after Easter

A few years after Easter Sunday,  our family was walking through the cemetery and I found myself asking, “Why does it feel like death still stings?” One of the gravestones in our church cemetery marks the infant son of dear friends. And every year, the number of people we know buried in that cemetery grows.

When I asked Joe, my husband and pastor, he reminded me the difference between the first death (physical - believers experience first and second-hand) and the second death (spiritual - believers will never experience because of Jesus). And he directed me to a sermon by Rico Tice, “do our bodies have a future?” speaking to the hope of the resurrection, looking at 1 Cor 15.

Listen to the sermon here

1 Cor 15:35-38 and 42

“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. “

“So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable”

...

This poem is a poetic prayer and response to the moments, days, and years when physical death still stings. I pray that this lament and praise is an encouragement to those of you in the midst or grief and sorrow. This year’s edit includes a response from Joe’s sermon last year and a reference to a Holy Week Devotional by David Mathis, “Morning and Evening Meditations for Holy Week, Conclusion: The Triumph of Joy.”

“When He wipes away every tear, our faces glisten more brilliantly than if we never would have cried.” - David Mathis

“A Cemetary Song”

Kate Lab

I know the tomb is empty
And I know my Savior lives. 
But there are days 
when death still stings
And my faith takes 
more than it gives. 

So I will recount your truth 
And I will recall what I know.
As I walk a path before me
among the saints 
who wait in rows. 

I walk the garden of my God 
These stones mark seeds sewn in the earth. 
I know to live is Christ and to die is gain,
& Death is a condition of rebirth. 

This life is winter, but spring is coming,
Death will not have the final word. 

And this living hope does make
What was bitter - sweet. 
Though my heart aches 
in a world sin-stained. 

My lips will still repeat:

I will praise Him in the shadow of the valley,
In suffering, my faith is exhumed. 
The resurrection of my Jesus 
Makes Death’s final threat 
as empty as the tomb. 

And this way, this pain
Is a loving God's plan A. 
Through suffering 
a greater joy is made. 
New Jerusalem is the
better place. 

This truth changes everything.

And I am more than a conqueror,
though I feel this earthly loss. 
This now & not yet life
has the tension of the cross. 

But Just wait, 
to see my glistening face
When all my tears 
are wiped away,
shining more brightly
because of my past sorrow and pain.

Just wait to see what I have gained.

So I will praise Him in this kingdom
That is both now and not yet. 
Though every day we are dying 

We know
There is no 
Second death.