Long Live Leo!

Romans 8:10-11

¹⁰ And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life^[d] because you have been made right with God. ¹¹ The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

It’s surprising how much we rail against death. It always shocks us. Always comes like a slap in the face. It’s not right. It shouldn’t be. We can’t get our minds around it. We can’t get comfortable with it. We fight against it, we run from it, we spend our life fearing it.

But it is relentless and we succumb… inevitably to its grasp…

But why? Why is something so ‘natural’ so repulsive to us? Why is it so often denied, ignored and swept under the carpet? It’s there, right before us, waiting for an answer. It will not be ignored, not for long anyway.

We were made the slaves of death, or more to the point- the ‘FEAR’ of death. If you don’t fear something it doesn’t really have any power over you. But we do fear. If not so much for ourselves, we do for those dear to us, those we love enough to die for.  We plot, we work and worry, we calculate our plans for escape, at least for a time. But we can only hold it off for so long. It always wins, in the end…

The truth of life, if we are willing to face it; is the reality and certainty of death. Separation from the ones we love. It is pretty much the worst thing ever. Actually it is the worst thing ever.

It is at this time, as I grieve with my brother and his wife, over the recent loss of their nephew Leo, that I am filled, strangely, with hope. Leo died at the tender age of (not quite!) 4. He was afflicted with a rare and horrid type of cancer; A tumour in his bladder, which made itself known soon after his first birthday.

It’s quite the story, the story of Leo’s life - and all that filled those years. And maybe not the story one would expect. Yes there was pain and grief and heart-ache… But there was more… Much more. There was faith and hope and love and family. There was light conquering the darkness. There was fear that was swallowed up by a greater love. There were revelations in faith and dreams of better days - and better days that came!

Those better days did not continue as we had hoped and prayed they would. We grieve that Leo is not here to hold and hug and grow up into a big burly man. It's wrong that he is not here! It was an evil thing that took his life. Yet, there is hope.

We all know that our lives have an expiry. Yet death still comes as a shock. That shock is multiplied when we see the life of one so young leaving us. But let his life remind you that your life also has an expiry. I say that not to stir up the darkness of fear that lies lurking in the shadows of your mind, but to whisper hope to you. The reason we rail against death, that we cannot assimilate with it, is because it was never meant to be for us. It was never meant to be the end.

The hope that Christ offers, the VERY REASON he came to earth - Immanuel God with us!! Was to break the power of this arch-enemy. He came to smash the head of death! He came to silence its voice, its taunts and the death-grip of fear that it has over us during our lives.  He came to destroy its power. And HE HAS DONE IT!

But don't we still face death? Yes, we do. Our physical bodies still go down to the grave. But as we discover what Christ has accomplished on the cross we are filled with hope. The love of God casts out all fear. The fear of death is the first to go. We are loved! Loved enough to die for! Death on this earth is not the final goodbye. There will be no final goodbye! Death will one day be wiped out completely. For now, we still get a taste of it. Enough to know how horrid it is and how much we do need a saviour; because none of us have the power to free ourselves from its hold. But Christ came and tasted death for us all. So, as we hope in him, we are freed from it. This is the hope we have! This is life changing! This is what we were made for! Eternal life has been written into our hearts. We all long for more than this life has to offer. Jesus came to fulfil that longing!

If it’s not your hope, if fear is your master, I encourage you to look into the claims of Jesus and just why a man that was crucified 2000 years ago can manage to have the growing following that he does. I would suggest the reason is that all that he claimed is actually true. And all those witnesses who claimed to see him after he was killed were not delusional, but speaking the truth. Jesus was the first to live a resurrected life. He invites us to do the same. In his life and love we flourish and hope conquers our fears and the sting of death is taken away. There is still pain and grief but we do not despair. Jesus told us plainly, ‘in this world you will have troubles, take heart, I have overcome the world’. That pretty much says it all. Still pain, still troubles, but the promise of final victory. Its not the end yet, the end is good. Better than we could hope or imagine. 

As we lift our eyes to see the bigger picture of what is being accomplished on this earth, we are invited into a life that never ends, a life of love and family. The movies have it right with the happily ever after… We just have to wait a little longer than we’d like to get to it. But there will be the happiest reunion we could ever imagine and then there will be no more goodbyes! He will wipe away all our tears. For now, we look to him in hope and faith that his words are true, and in time we will see all that we have hoped for and more, come to pass. Long live Leo! His life is not over, its just beginning. I am so blessed to have been a small part of his family’s journey and to witness how their faith kept their hearts filled with hope even as they ached in pain. Thank you Bec and Ky for your testimony to God’s goodness. This earth is not our home and you have helped remind me that we look to something greater and our hope in him is not in vain.

Hebrews 11:13-16

¹³ All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. ¹⁴ Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. ¹⁵ If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back.¹⁶ But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.