Lifted Up By Christ

If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Roman 8:31-32

Preparing ourselves for death is the most important task of life, at least we believe that death is not the total dissolution of our identity but the way to its fullest revelation. Death, as Jesus speaks about it, is that moment in which total defeat and total victory are one. The cross on which Jesus died is the sign of this oneness of the defeat and victory. Jesus speaks about his death as being "lifted up". Lifted up on the cross as well as lifted up in the resurrection. Jesus wants our death to be like his, a death in which the worlds banishes us but God welcomes us home.

How, then, do we prepare ourselves for death? By living each day in the full awareness of being children of God, whose love is stronger than death. Speculations and concerns about the final days of our life are useless, but making each day in to a celebration of our belovedness as sons and daughters of God will allow us to live our final days, whether short or long, as birthing days. The pains of dying are labor pains. Through them, we leave the womb of this world and are born to the fullness of the children of God.

Lord, give me confidence in the face of death, for you have truly won the victory for me.

Taken from Daily Lenten Meditations from the works of Henri Nouwen