Our Christian Hope

He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces. – Isaiah 25:8 (KJV)
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? – 1 Corinthians 15:55 (KJV)

What do these words mean to you? Do you live life free from the fear of death? Have you seen anyone who lived in such a way? What were they like? What does this say of Christian hope?

Tom Long told the following story in his sermon, “A Living Hope”:
In her beautiful book, “Intensive Care,” Mary Lou Weisman tells the moving and tragic story of the death of her fifteen-year-old son, Peter, from the terrible disease, muscular dystrophy. She tells about an astonishing thing that happened right at the moment of his death. Peter’s body was completely paralyzed in the final stages of his disease, and the delirium of death was taking over his mind in his last few minutes of his life. He was moaning, random and disconnected in his thoughts. His voice, wrote Mary Lou, “sounded so far away, so lost.” But then, suddenly, in a surprisingly clear voice, Peter spoke directly to Larry, his father.
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Bewildered and frightened, Larry and Mary Lou looked at each other. What could this strange question from their dying son possibly mean?
“Daddy, what does ‘impudent’ mean?”
Even though he had tears streaming from his eyes, Larry answered Peter matter-of-factly. “Impudent. Son, impudent means bold. It means shamelessly bold.”
Peter paused for a moment, death closing its grip on him, and then he said, “Then put me in an impudent position.”
And sure enough, just before their son died, Larry and Mary Lou, positioned Peter’s arms and legs in a posture of bold defiance, an “impudent position” in the face of death.

I suppose the question for us now is how might we live in an impudent position as we go about life? Our Christian hope in the defeat of death allows us look over a chaotic world while we exist in it and know that God is not done! The last word is not death, nor disease, nor war, nor troubles, nor persecutions, nor anything of the vast array of evil that wishes our depression and our defeat. The last word is the One we call the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, the One who defeated death itself. Therefore we can stand as a resurrection people and in an impudent position, ready to take on the trials of life with the hope of God!

With hope and joy,
Garrett