To Be Continued . . .

Death is swallowed up in victory.
          —1 Corinthians 15:54

We met at the Ritz for Saturday matinees, vicariously living our childhood shoot-’em-up fantasies. Cowboys were our heroes. After the feature film, there was a nail-biting reel, ending with a white-hatter facing a no-way-out catastrophe—fading to the words: “To Be Continued . . .”

The apostle Paul faced many life-threatening jams. Concerning one frightening ordeal, he wrote, “We despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor 1:8–9).

I’ve presided at many funerals where the deceased had defeated death by faith, and loved ones could confidently claim that “death [was] swallowed up in victory.” The parting was painful, but it was not “Goodbye”—it was “To Be Continued . . .”

Death is defeated in a
wrestling match with faith.