And He Died.

And He Died.

The opening chapters of Genesis are packed with varied and exciting things - Chapter 1, the order of creation - Chapter 2, the narrative of Adam and Eve - Chapter 3, and then, their fall - Chapter 4, the first murder. Of course, all good things must end, and so when we come to Genesis 5, we have a genealogy of sorts, a story of men and their sons and their lifespans. After each one, there is this final epitaph: and he died.

It is the story of humanity under the curse of sin. God had predicted it, and then He followed through - in the day that you eat of that tree, you will surely die. And man surely did, that is, he surely ate, and he surely died.

And so it is surprising that we are shocked at death. You hear that so and so died. You say, “You’re kidding! What happened?” Well, what happened is what happens to every one who is born into this world. They die. You will die. I will die. Shocking? Not really.

There are exceptions. You are most likely not going to be one of them. In Genesis 5, in the 7th generation from Adam, a man named Enoch was born. All before him died. But Enoch did not. The Bible says, rather cryptically, “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” He didn’t die by going down. Rather, God took him up. It is an exception, the only one thus far, and it would be generations and generations before such an instance would occur again. It is the exception that proves the rule: we are all going to die (99.999%).

Elijah was a prophet of God that served during the dark days of King Ahab in Israel. Elijah’s life was precarious, at least from a human point of view. Ahab desperately wanted Elijah dead. But Elijah didn’t die. Rather, he was swept up in a whirlwind and carried by horses and chariot to heaven. It’s an amazing story, and part of the reason that it is amazing is that he didn’t die, but the rest of us will. It is the human thing to do.

And then we come to Jesus. We must always come to Jesus. Jesus died, young. “You’re kidding! How did it happen?” It happened in an unusual way, not that unusual for thieves and insurrectionists, but certainly rare for a Jewish rabbi. He experienced capital punishment. He died. But then, He rose from the dead to die no more.

There are other resurrections in the Bible. Jesus Himself raised Lazarus from the dead only a short time before His own death on the cross. But there is a difference. Lazarus died twice. He lived, died, was resurrected, and then died again. Jesus lived and died, but rose from the dead to die no more. He entered not into a second phase of temporal life, but into eternal life - the life that He offers you and me.

Jesus invites us to become one with Him by faith. It is not that Jesus is assimilated to you, but rather, that you are assimilated to Him. There are physical acts in which Jesus engaged into which He invites you to participate. He died, for a reason, for your sake, to bear the punishment of your sins. He invites you live a life that is dead to sin. He rose from the grave into new life, and a new kind of life. He invites you to walk in newness of life, a life in which the last chapter is not, “and he died,” but that we live, and live forever, never to die again.