‘Death, Where Is Your Sting?’ (contest What is Death? – Sue k Green)
where you dare not dream
six feet or not
under stumbling global
unsure feet
where dark is totally to you silent
though overhead a world screams
daily moaning and groaning
although many are still able to enjoy
birds singing during oncoming springs
where your memories pause
as suns and moons
continue
circuitous stream of consciousness
belonging to familial beings
as green grass blossoms
yet, in windy days lean down
after erect and vibrant
before thunderous rains
plus crashing lightening beams?
There you lay… Not comprehending anything.
“For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing at all,
nor do they have any more reward,
because all memory of them is forgotten.”
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might, for there is no work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the Grave, where you are going.” Eccl. 9:5, 10.
However, is death the end of all things?
Some will answer to an Archangels’ call…
“And the sea gave up the dead in it,
and death and the Grave gave up the dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds.” Rev. 20 :13.
Deeds done after on an earth restored,
for did not the Bible once decree:
“For the wages sin pays is death,
but the gift God gives is everlasting life
by Christ Jesus our Lord”? Rom 6:23.
Therefore, “I have hope toward God, which hope these men also look forward to,
that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.” Acts 24:15
Is not this resurrection hope offered a slap in the face of death
mankind’s long-time enemy?
Indeed, God’s provision of the resurrection
handled in his timely speed
Death cannot impede:
“Death, where is your victory?
Death, where is your sting?”
1 Cor. 15:55.
Think about death and how it affects you and your family. What do you think happens after death?
Please be so kind as to read, “They Say,” written by me soon after my brother’s passing. I found the writing quite cathartic.
Based upon…
Death Compared With Sleep. There is evidence that people sleep in cycles. Each cycle is made up of a deep sleep followed by a lighter sleep. During periods of deep sleep it is very difficult to awaken a person. He is completely unaware of his surroundings and the things that may be occurring about him. There is no conscious activity. Similarly, the dead are “conscious of nothing at all.” (Ec 9:5, 10; Ps 146:4) Therefore death, whether that of a man or of an animal, is like sleep. (Ps 13:3; Joh 11:11-14; Ac 7:60; 1Co 7:39; 15:51; 1Th 4:13) The psalmist wrote: “From your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both the charioteer and the horse have fallen fast asleep.” (Ps 76:6; compare Isa 43:17.) Were it not for God’s purpose to awaken persons from the sleep of death, they would never wake up.—Compare Job 14:10-15; Jer 51:39, 57; see RESURRECTION.
However, “death” and “sleep” may also be contrasted. Concerning a dead girl, Christ Jesus said: “The little girl did not die, but she is sleeping.” (Mt 9:24; Mr 5:39; Lu 8:52) As he was going to resurrect her from death, Jesus may have meant that the girl had not ceased forever to exist but would be as one awakened from her sleep. Also, this girl had not been buried, nor had her body had time to begin decaying, as had the body of Lazarus. (Joh 11:39, 43, 44) On the basis of the authority granted to him by his Father, Jesus could say this just as does his Father, “who makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were.”—Ro 4:17; compare Mt 22:32.
It should be noted that the term “asleep” is applied in the Scriptures to those dying because of the death passed on from Adam. Those suffering the “second death” are not spoken of as asleep. Rather, they are shown to be completely annihilated, out of existence, burned up as by an unquenchable fire.—Re 20:14, 15; compare Heb 10:26-31, where a contrast is made between the death of those who violated the Mosaic Law and the much more severe punishment meted out to Christians who turn to a willful practice of sin; Heb 6:4-8. it-2 pp. 980-981
ITH & SB 