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Pastoral Points
We may be more used to hearing about “death-defying” feats, but I think, as a society, we actually spend a lot more time attempting death-denying feats.
Take one look at the culture in which we are immersed. The beauty and fashion industries are always trying to sell us the best new tricks. You can find a vitamin or supplement that claims to fix any ailment you might have. And enough people believe celebrities are not beautiful enough as they are that every image is digitally manipulated into impossible flawlessness.
It all adds up to a message that younger is better and aging is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone. The pressure is so intense that many people actually choose to slice up their bodies in a desperate search for restored youth. Now there’s a “transhumanist” movement that wants to mesh biology with technology to achieve some form of immortality.
But we know, deep down, it’s not cosmetics or vitamins or surgery or technology that brings life. Jesus Christ is the true source of eternal life, and how does he give us this life? Through death. Through his own death and resurrection, Jesus brings everlasting life to all who believe in him.
Real resurrection is not a game of pretend. Maintaining a youthful façade doesn’t enable us to cheat death, and Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t about cheating death anyway. Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully human. He really, truly died, and he really, truly rose from death. That is how he won true victory over death! That is what it means for our Christ to be “the resurrection and the life” (John 11).
We confess that because he lives, we too shall live (John 14). And St. Paul writes: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?... For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6).
Full and eternal life — resurrection life — comes only through death. So a death-denying culture is really a life-denying culture.
When we put our trust in useless tricks, we fail to trust the true source of our life. When we make an idol of youth, we aren’t living the abundant life to which God calls us. When we try to ignore the reality of death — as painful as it is — we miss out on the new life our Christ brings out of death. It’s the life that begins at baptism and continues into eternity.
