“Death is what makes this life meaningful, for this life is morally serious only if it ends.” - Ambrose, On Belief in the Resurrection

“Death has replaced sex as the subject too obscene for polite society.” - Shirley Guthrie

Sweet for we know that absence from the body is presence with Christ. (2 Cor 5:8)

Healing

Rest

Clarity

Bitter for we know that absence from the body is also absence from our lives.

1. Need for comfort is often brought by the people around us.

2. Need to possibly deal with unresolved guilt, anger, forgiveness, and feelings.

Those who take death seriously navigate life fully. For they view each day as a gift to love God and cherish those around them. Those who make peace with mortality embrace this first act with such abandon that when the end arrives it does so with few regrets and even fewer loose ends.

The only way to take death seriously is to take the work of Christ, our high priest, seriously. He showed us the path that leads to abundant life, he won a victory over death so that we now see it at a beginning and not an end, and he has promised that he will be with us always even to the end of the age.

Thank you, Lord, for this your servant Jesus.