“‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where 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 15:55-57, ESV).

My colleague and I were discussing older patients who kept their good cognition, and it triggered a memory for him of one such patient of his who had been elderly but clear headed. He related being in his office when a hospital nurse called, telling him his patient had just died. He left the office to visit the hospital room where his patient was lying with the sheet over his head. As my colleague approached the corpse, his patient suddenly sat up and scared the living daylights out of all in the room.

We’ve all heard the joke: “What do you hope people will say about you at your funeral?”

And the winning answer is, “He’s alive!”

Sort of like my colleague’s experience above.

I heard a better story about funeral words. One of my patients is an inner-city minister whose son died from a brain tumor.

One day he was giving a dental health talk at a high school. He told the students of his son’s funeral, told them how he had approached the body of the one he loved so much and told his son, “I’ll see you later.”

He then turned to the students and said, “How many of you want people to come to your coffin one day and say, ‘Goodbye”? And how many would rather have someone step up to your coffin and promise, ‘I’ll see you later’?”

He continued, “I can’t say anything more at this official school function, but anyone who wants to stay after, I can tell you how to make that promise come true.”

Many students remained, and many came to Christ.

There is truly something special about stories where life seems to overwhelm the circumstance of death. We may have seen it happen, like my colleague above, or like patients we know for whom God miraculously held back death for a time, or even like Martha who saw Lazarus step from the grave. Seeing life temporarily overcome death is an amazing and wonderful experience.

But Christ can make it happen forever. Only Christ can make it happen for us forever.

It’s not a belief; it’s a Person.

Dear Father,

Let me live grounded in the truth that those who love you through Christ will live forever.

Amen