“Ready” : Systematic Theology from Death Row : Casey McWhorter & Jeff Hood

Is it possible that all of life is a preparation for death? Think about it. We are born to die. Even when you look at the smallest baby…you know that death is inevitable. Yet, the baby still represents something so much more than death. The newborn is a revelation…the revelation that life will continue. It’s almost as if one can see eternity in the baby’s eyes. From that moment on, the baby is the future. Time is about the future learning to give way to the future. Maybe that’s what it means to be ready…ready to die.

Society thinks that there is nothing more frightening than death. On this point, society is wrong. It is far more frightening to live a life devoid of meaning…to be lost in a sea of nothingness. We create meaning by creating life…or living to make our lives mean something. When one creates meaning, death is simply a fulfillment of such meaning…an explosion of purpose that emits a brilliant display of hope. It’s almost as if we are declaring…I mattered. Such a declaration is eternal…for if we matter then we never truly die…we simply join the great symphony of those who have gone before us in universal declaration that death is but a comma…life goes on. We must be ready to continue…to live out death in a way that means that death will always succumb to more life.

God exists despite death. The promise of God is that death is the death of death…meaning that death can only touch us once and death thus dies. So, is death something to look forward to? Maybe. But death only has power if we give it power. If we live ready to die, then death will always be powerless. There is no truth to death. There is only truth in life…and life never dies. May we all live ready…come what may…for life eternal. The death of death.