In the Valley of the Shadow of Death

Photo by Sven Pieren on Unsplash

Two weeks ago, over the course of 48 hours, I learned, on Facebook, from a call, and via text, about three deaths—a newborn boy, a young man, and an older woman—and each one hurt my heart. I prayed for their families. I cried. I thought about death. 

The first time you read about death in scripture, it’s a warning. “… Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Gen 2:17) Death is this unheard of but ominous-sounding consequence of eating the fruit, which God wants the man to avoid. The first time you see death in scripture, it’s murder: Cain killing his brother, Abel.

That pretty much sets the tone for death throughout the Bible. It’s regularly something you want to avoid (like Prov 9:13-18 and 14:12) or something to be rescued from (like Psalm 18:4-6 or 56:13). It’s an enemy, Paul says (1 Cor 15:26). The one who holds the power of death is the devil, Hebrews tells us (2:14). Ever since Eden, death has been an ugly, painful intruder in God’s world.

When death appears, in the second chapter of the Bible, it’s a warning about it’s coming, but in the second to last chapter of the Bible, we get a promise about it’s going. One day, we’re told, God “will wipe every tear from [our] eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more.” (Rev 21:4)

This is a recurring theme, too. Paul’s point in 1 Corinthians 15 was that death is an enemy that will be destroyed. Isaiah, foreshadowing Revelation 21, promises that God “will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces.” (25:8) In the end, God’s going to show this intruder to the door, and He will heal the wounds and repair the damage it inflicted on the world.

To me, the Bible is the story of God doing something about death.

And the climax of that story unfolds over the next few days. It comes when God faces death himself, is killed, is buried, and then rises again, overcoming death. That’s why, to quote the preacher and poet John Donne, “death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.” Jesus defeated it and shares that victory with his people (1 Cor 15:55-57).

When death intrudes in my world, I have to remind myself: God warned us this would happen; God sees the tears we cry; God’s plan is to eradicate death, mourning, crying, and pain. That’s what I see when I read scripture in the valley of the shadow of death. The Lord knows that it hurts, and the Lord is doing something about it.

If you’re grieving today—maybe because of one of the deaths that hurt my heart recently—I hope that the days ahead will be a balm for your soul. I hope that you’ll be able to hear the old, familiar story again with new ears. I hope that you’ll hear the promise of the cross and the empty tomb: “I am the living one. I died, but look—I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and the grave.” (Rev 1:18)

Jesus holds the keys now. And he is setting his people free.

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