Newsletter — October 26, 2025
For some reason, the skeletons all around my neighborhood (most are bleached white, though a few are fluorescent orange and green!) never seem to make it out of the ground. They are still “buried.” Often they are surrounded by signs that read “No one leaves!” or “No one gets out!” Definitely signs of the times: we fear death, it’s scary, but we die and that’s it. In the grave and don’t leave. How sad!
But for the Christian gospel, death is a whole other thing! Why? Because Jesus incorporated death into life. Christian faith means faith in a God who makes death into a positive feature of life. “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades” (Revelation 1:17b-18). By being the “first Man,” Jesus established the possibility of a different stance toward suffering and death. Life after the cross, and life in light of the cross, is a life in which death never has the final word, but where death is the means and path toward new, more expansive resurrection life. “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:10-11).
Faith in the God of the future (“I am alive forevermore”), who is also revealed in the cross, enables us to die not only to all the false gods out there in the world, but even to ourselves day after day, and move to the future. Death to our selfish selves, to our sins, to our ungodly aspirations, and even wrecked situations we find ourselves in so much, means moving forward in the resurrection life of Jesus. The Christian life is one of daily death and resurrection, and because of Jesus, death has paradoxically become the key to everlasting life. Even abundant life!
That’s something you really need to share with the owners of those skeletons!



