I absolutely love nature. Being outdoors is my preferred place. Whatever the activity – work or play – I’d rather it be outside. We experience and learn so much about God from spending time in nature – the world He created for us. However, there is one component of our natural world that doesn’t appear to have existed in God’s original Eden created for Adam and Eve. Death. Even creation itself suffered the consequences of their sin. It too was cursed with death (I would do anything to be able to see God’s original version of Eden – but more of that later).
But God found a way to even use the process of death to make something beautiful and alive again. You see it every where in nature. Seeds die so flowers can grow. Flowers die so seeds can fall to the grow. Forest burn and new growth returns. (Even Foresters use controlled burns to produce positive outcomes and avoid catastrophes.) Caterpillars die so the beautiful butterfly can live. We can see the beauty and necessity of the death metamorphosis all around us. Death is such an inspirational and powerful mode of change you even see it used in literal – like the phoenix rising for its ashes.
So, when Adam and Eve sinned and brought both types of death in this world – physical and spiritual – God’s power was such that even in their mistake and even in death He could produce something beautiful and new.
Throughout the Scriptures death is either linked destruction and judgment or to new beginnings and cleansing. Sacrifices of animals were required for sins. Even Christ faced death. Yet it all instances, the outcome of death always depends on the one facing death. Does this person attempt to face arrogantly face death alone? If so, only destruction waits for them. Or, does the person face the certainty of death with God. If so, God will turn that death into something beautiful.
Those who embrace God’s will for their lives accept the need for death. They willingly put to death their old lives. They take on the take the death of our Lord through baptism. They allow God to set fire to the forest of their old lives so that someone new came come from its ashes.
But God’s power over death doesn’t end into the transformation of to your new man on earth. No. Christ defeated death itself. He defeated physical death and spiritual death. Those who allow for death to change their lives on earth no longer have to face their physical death believing it is the end. Instead, because their embraced the death of their sinful selves to become someone new on this earth – God promises to raise those people from death again. We are not condemned to the second death of fire and judgment but instead promise resurrection and a return to God’s eternal Eden where death will be no more.
So, for those who embrace the concept of death according to God’s will, remember – death is only the beginning.
Adonai's Appeal 