The Day Death Started Losing

(from 1 Corinthians 15)

Once, far away, there was a city called Corinth, and the people there were afraid.

They were afraid of the same thing you are afraid of, sometimes, in the dark. They were afraid of dying. They were afraid of the people they loved going away and not coming back. They had stood beside graves. They had cried until they had no tears left. And when the house went still at night, the fear told them the same thing every time: "This is how the story ends. Everybody you love, gone. And one day you too."

So a man named Paul sat down to write them a letter. He loved them very much, and he had news so big he could hardly hold the pen still.

"Listen," he wrote. "I have to tell you the most important thing of all. Don't forget it. Hold on to it tight."

And here is what he told them.

Jesus died. That part they knew. They had wept over it.

But then, on the third morning, Jesus was alive again, with breath in him and warmth in his hands. His friends saw him. They touched his fingers. They ate breakfast with him on the sand. Hundreds of people saw him at once, walking and talking among them.

Death had swallowed Jesus down.

And Jesus walked back out.

Death had been like a giant nobody could beat. It took everyone and gave nothing back, not once since the beginning of the world. Until that morning. That morning, death opened its hand and had to let someone go.

That was the day death started losing.

Paul had a special name for Jesus. He called him the "firstfruits." When the very first apple turns red on the tree, the farmer holds it up and laughs, because now he knows. The rest of the orchard is coming. One first apple in your hand is a promise of a thousand more.

Jesus is the first one out of the grave, the first ripe one, and he is holding you up to the sky like a promise.

Because Jesus came back, you will come back too. And everyone who loves him. Your turn is coming. Paul said it plainly, so the frightened people could clutch it to their chests: the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself. The giant that takes everyone is going to be emptied out. Every grave opened. Every goodbye undone.

It began the morning the stone rolled away, and it has never stopped since. Death is losing already. You can feel it losing, a little, even now.

And one day the King who walked out of his own grave will come back for the rest of us, and call every name he loves, and not one will be missing.

He started it at an empty tomb, and he will finish it with you safe in his arms.