December 27

“Our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” 2 Timothy 2:10

THAT there is a separating power in death is a truth too evident and too affecting to deny. It separates the soul from the body, and man from all the pursuits and attractions of earth. “His breath goes forth, in that very day his thoughts perish.” All his thoughts of ambition—his thoughts of advancement—his thoughts of a vain and Pharisaical religion—all perish on that day. What a mournful sublimity is there in this vivid description of the separating power of death over the creature! What a separating power, too, has it, as felt in the chasms it creates in human relationships! Who has not lost a friend, a second self, by the ruthless hand of death? What bright home has not been darkened, what loving heart has not been saddened, by its visitations? It separates us from the husband of our youth—from the child of our affections—from the friend and companion of our earlier and riper years. It comes and breaks the link that bound us so fondly and so closely to the being whose affection, sympathy, and communion seemed essential elements of our being, whose life we were used to regard as a part of our very existence.

But there is one thing from which death cannot separate us—the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, and all the blessings which that love bestows. Death separate us! No; death unites us the more closely to those blessings, by bringing us into their more full and permanent possession. Death imparts a realization and a permanence to all the splendid and holy anticipations of the Christian. The happiest moment of his life is its last. All the glory and blessing of his existence cluster and brighten around that solemn crisis of his being. Then it is he feels how precious the privilege and how great the distinction of being a believer in Jesus. And the day that darkens his eye to all earthly scenes opens it upon the untold and unimaginable and ever-increasing glories of eternity. It is the birth-day of his immortality. Then, Christian, fear not death! It cannot separate you from the Father’s love, nor can it, while it tears you from an earthly bosom, wrench you from Christ’s. You shall have in death, it may be, a brighter, sweeter manifestation of His love than you ever experienced in life. Jesus, the Conqueror of death, will approach and place beneath you His almighty arms, and your head upon His loving bosom. Thus encircled and pillowed, you “shall not see death,” but, passing through its gloomy portal, shall only realize that you had actually died, from the consciousness of the joy and glory into which death had ushered you.