By Rev. Aidan Moon

Whether We Live Or Die

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking this SoundCloud link. 

“For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”
– Romans 14:8

This spring, after a hectic Lent and Easter, I spent some time at a monastery to pray and rest. While I was there, however, it was all hands on deck to lay a friend of the monastery to rest in the mausoleum.

After she was laid in her niche, the monks took a moment to pause at the monastery cemetery where their brothers and sisters slept in Christ. Despite the stark image of these men in their black robes and the simple wooden crosses against a barren background, they were at ease, jovial even. Taking that moment among those who had died in Christ, they shared stories and laughter as they remembered their brothers and sisters in faith

We tend to either trivialize or avoid death. As I’ve walked through our neighborhood this season there are goofy skeletons and grim reapers galore. But I saw in these brothers a Christian approach to death. Our faith is a resurrection faith. Death is not good. But it isn’t something to be afraid of either. We are all, in some ways, like these brothers, among the tombs of those we love, dressed in black. it is appropriate to be real when it comes to death. We don’t need to avoid it. We can acknowledge it. We can acknowledge the grief. We are in, after all “a vale of tears.” We have lost people. But at the same time, we are full of joy. We are confident that whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. We are his.

Jesus is alive. And for us, whether we die or live, we are in the Lord. We are with him. And grief and laughter, tears and joy, are not mutually exclusive while we wait for resurrection.

^“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
– 1 Corinthians 15:55