From Death Comes Life – Sunday, April 22, 1984
Today we talk of the inexplicable, of the mysterious and profound, of superstition and fear—today we speak of death.
There is nothing else with which we are so concerned. Our art, our culture, and especially our religion is saturated with it. That we may cease to exist, is the greatest concern of mankind—and with good reason. The evidence of death’s power over life surrounds and envelopes us. Even the young child is filled with an awe for death; one has seen the imposing casket lowered into the black depths of the grave and knows that grandmother is no longer found in her kitchen; another has pulled the mangled puppy from under the automobile and is filled with wonder for the awesome fact of life’s extinction.
And we who have had the silent specter rob us of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters are humbled by its final argument. For we are all on death row, condemned to die; soon or late, we too must follow the hosts of humanity who have traveled into the darkness.
If this life is all the harvest that we reap, if death ends all and brings us to endless nothingness, then there would be cause for overwhelming despair. But gratefully and joyfully that is not all there is—that is not God’s plan.
For today, on this Easter morning we speak not only of death, but also of life, of eons of it, of whole eternities of it—eternal life flowing endlessly, without limits or boundaries, eternal lives of laughing, loving, learning.
This then is our true thesis today, as we celebrate the morning of all mornings when a stone was rolled away from a sepulcher near Jerusalem to reveal an empty tomb—empty of death, empty of fear, empty forever. As all tombs, sepulchers, and graves will be forever empty—their contents born again into the everlasting life which will know no corruption.
Thanks be to God for death which frees us from this imperfection. Thanks be to God for a knowledge of the resurrection which fills us with visions of eternal life.
And thanks be to Him who rose victorious to break the bonds of death forever.
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April 22, 1984
Broadcast Number 2,853