Facing Death

"Sri Lanka's new executioner panicked after seeing the country's main gallows for the first time and has since gone AWOL leaving the authorities hanging. He reported for duty earlier this month, but freaked out after seeing the execution site."

You would think that a man who applied for this job would have been familiar with what a gallows looked like.Maybe facing death up close and personal is more of a challenge than we think. The first probably dead person I ever saw was in a shopping centre in Nottingham. He was grey coloured and sitting very still on a bench. I got near enough to see his chest wasn't moving and then ran for it. I was in the room when my mother-in-law went to be with Jesus. It was terribly sad. She breathed a low rattling breath and then wasn't there any more. Her body was there but she had gone. I didn't run for it. I sat with tears running down my face, glad that she wasn't in pain any more. I remember a poem by John Donne that I heard when I was a little girl:  "Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, die not poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me." For me as a Christian, death is a terrible thing. It robs me of people I love, it robs people I love of people they love. It often seems to be unfair. But my faith in Jesus Christ and his victory over death, gives me the most wonderful hope that although death is awful, it is not unbearable. I believe Jesus when he said "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die." This week my parents had their 87th and 88th birthdays. I am blessed to still have them and I am dreading them dying. I even cry ahead of time. But I am utterly confident that my parents have eternal life and that they will enjoy God and be in His presence for ever, and, in forty years or so, if Jesus doesn't come and fetch me first, I will also die and enjoy God and be in His presence for ever.I understand the hangman from Sri Lanka running away from death. I know a man who carried his cross up a hill and faced death head on. He did it for me. He came alive again. So will I.