Death.

Why must death precede new life?

Death is the most finite outcome in the earth; it is so final.

I am consistently perplexed and besieged by the mysteries that Christ has chosen to reveal Himself; death being chief among them. Christ, the giver of life, but He has shown me that much of our journey with Him here is about death.

The name “Adam” means “life man.” So what a peculiar title the Son of Man gives Himself as “The Last Adam.” The One who died and the One who was buried, yet the soils that the first Adam was pulled from, could not contain the last One. As if even the earth knew these two were not the same.

But why death before resurrection? Why does the seed have to fall to the ground and die? Why must flesh die for the Spirit to live?

Why in the watery grave of a baptism must the old man and the first Adam in all of us die, before the Last Adam can live inside of us?

The Apostle Paul says that to die is gain and that death is the beginning.

It is a war within ourselves, because we have been conditioned to pursue life at all costs. But this Lamb King came to die.

The only way I can reconcile such violently contradicting outcomes inside of myself is to think of the darkest of nights, gently giving way to the new light. It is not as if the moon and darkness appear in an abrupt flash, ending the day. Nor does the new sun burst forth instantaneously, making the moon and stars obsolete. No, rather, it is a gentle fading. The darkness yielding and giving way to the light and the creation story found in a new day.

Maybe that is what death is.

Each of us choosing to surrender our darkness, and give way to the new light, simply because it is time.

And every day, every decision, every moment it is us choosing to lay down one more piece of darkness, until new life and His light is all we see. Which brings wonderful understanding when the Holy Scriptures declare that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

Because even Jesus wept for death.

And if these seasons of night for the soul feel like our death, it is okay to weep.

It is okay to grieve our death, but so long as we know it gives way to new life. I am convinced when we surrender our lives, even unto death, only then do we truly live. For whoever loses his life will gain it.

And our death, watered by the tears of our grief, will birth a bouquet of life. Because the soil we die in, is the same soil that could not contain Him. And there is no grander place to lay down our lives, than in the tomb of Christ Jesus our Lord. Knowing that if we rise again, when we rise again, it will be at the behest of I AM.

And nothing in this life can ever be trusted, unless it is in resurrected form. For anything that has not yet died, can never truly live.