When Death is Gain

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. – Philippians 1:21

Preservation, keeping what is currently before our eyes, is the mindset of our culture and the world. For we (supposedly) know what we can see. And if we cannot see it, then it is most likely not real. More than not being real, it is most likely a loss. The world would emend Paul's words to the Christians in Philippi to say: "to live is all there is; to die is to lose it all."

But the words of Paul are really a reflection on the Christ event: Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. That Jesus has passed through death, thus defeating it–O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?–means, at least, that there is life beyond death. And that life, as Jesus speaks of it as well as the Early Church, is not some shadowland, a thin veneer of what life used to be which we live now in this world. Rather, that life, the life beyond the grave, is life lived in full color; life lived in real reality; life lived as it is intended to be: sweet communion.

But there is loss in that life. That loss is the loss of the presence of sin. That loss is the loss of shame. That loss is the loss of all that distorts and disrupts love for God and neighbor. That loss is the loss of hindered communion with God, namely through the person and presence of Jesus. If we were to "lose" such things, how can we not say they are gain?

As these things are so–they are true, they are real reality–they are meant to shape our lives in the present. This is an instance of the kingdom of God breaking into our world, our "reality" now. The life and reality of the world to come makes inroads into our daily existence. One outcome of this–there are many–is we may live, not enslaved to this present life, assuming that if we lose it we lose everything. Rather we are freed from that tyranny; freed to love and serve as faithful witnesses of Christ; freed to live lives of sacrificial love, counting others better than ourselves.

For to live is Christ; to die, gain.

Grace & Peace