A GREAT SOLEMN GLADNESS

"When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
'Death has been swallowed up in victory.'
'Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?'
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:54-57 NRSV)

No one who is fit to live need fear to die.  Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are!  How we shall smile at our vain alarms, when the worst has happened!  To us here, death is the most terrible word we know.  But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves.  It will be what health is to the sick man.  It will be what home is to the exile.  It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved.  As we draw near to it, a great solemn gladness should fill our hearts.  It is God’s great morning lighting up the sky.

-- George Springs Merriam (1843-1914) in A Living Faith [1876]


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