The horror of death and the hope of resurrection

Horrific doesn’t begin to describe 9/11. Like most of the world, I spent that day glued to the TV in disbelief, watching the footage of the planes hitting the towers, causing those gigantic fireballs, melting the iron beams, and triggering the eventual collapse of the once stalwart buildings.

I watched stunned as people jumped hundreds of stories to their death. Others stood out windows, trapped, begging desperately for saving. It was a dark day, and a surreal one. All captured on television for the world to see.

It’s been a decade since those horrible attacks. In looking back, it’s appropriate to reflect and ask, “Why is 9/11 seared into our brains? Why is it such a cultural force? What does the day tell us about ourselves and God?”

9/11 reminds us that life is fragile and that ultimately we’ll all die. Amid the troubles and worries of everyday life, we often ignore this fact. But times of great tragedy serve to remind us that life is both temporal and fragile. Death comes for us all.

And in those moments, we wonder, what will happen when we die?

People have opinions. Some believe in reincarnation. Others believe that nothing happens. Still others believe that there’s some sort of afterlife that you go to if you’re good. For the Christian, we believe that there is an eventual bodily resurrection of the dead.

The question becomes, “What and who will you trust to teach about what’s next?”

Christianity is unique in that it provides for the hope of resurrection and eternal life for the body. Often, the cultural concept of life after death is an inane, cartoonish picture of people becoming chubby angels, wearing diapers, and plucking harps while sitting on clouds with wings far too small to take us anywhere interesting. The biblical concept of resurrection, however, is this world recycled, renewed, and redeemed without sin and the effects of sin, such as death, injustice, evil, hatred, pollution, and suffering-the world as God originally made it. And, the world as God will remake it in his time.

According to the hope-filled vision of the Bible, life after death culminates in a resurrection of the physical body-not just the ongoing existence of the immaterial soul in some other realm. And our bodies are made new, without frailty or mortality, “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:42).

This is in stark contrast to most of the historical ideas about life after death, which view the body as a prison and the soul as immortal. Plato drives this point home: “The soul, being immortal, existed before the body, and will continue to exist after the body is gone.”

Since 9/11, there’s been a great resurgence in spirituality. I often meet people who are self-described as “spiritual.” 9/11 has caused many to seek some sort of meaning and grounding in the face of death.

Yet, the question persists, who will you trust to teach you about life after death in general, and guide you through your own death in particular? Jesus alone has died and returned from death. Jesus alone knows what awaits us on the other side of death. Jesus alone has defeated death, and declared so saying, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).

The central event of the Bible and human history is the death of Jesus on the cross for the sins of the world and his resurrection in victory over death. It is through sin that death entered the world. And it is through Jesus’ death that sin and death are defeated, those who are far from God are brought near to God, and those facing death can do so knowing that Jesus tells the truth, that he meets us on the other side of death and that he raises the dead.

Do you know Jesus as God, forgiver of sin, and conqueror of death? The only thing worse than dying, is dying apart from Jesus, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). People so opposed this claim by Jesus that they killed him. Thankfully, he resurrected from death to verify his claim.

Sin is the problem. Death is the consequence. Jesus is the answer.

More On Faith and 9/11:

Desmond Tutu: Our post-9/11 failures

Tony Blair: Remaking the world after 9/11

Sam Harris: 9/11 demands intellectual honesty

Thomas Monson: Rebuilding our souls

T.D. Jakes: Spirituality after the attack

Feisal Abdul Rauf: Radical Islam on its way out

Donald Wuerl: Peace begins internally

Katharine Jefferts Schori: Live the memorial

Mark Driscoll: Death and the hope of resurrection

Karen Armstrong: Unite through compassion

Deepak Chopra: Divided hearts, divided world

Yasir Qadhi: Americans still don’t know Islam

Mark Driscoll  | Sep 8, 2011 10:36 AM