God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
Since we are forced to deal with the consequences of death we tend to try to explain it away as simply a part of the natural order. In this view, death is simply part of the circle of life. The problem is with us being too attached to one another, too attached to the patterns of the world as we experience it now. But this isn't what God tells us. God placed us in a garden with a tree of life. Death wasn't in the cards.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.
Does knowing this help? In the first place it means that the goodness is God is not tarnished by death. He doesn't create us simply so that we may be devoured. He does not indifferently create a natural order and leave us to deal with the consequences. He designs the world for us to live in. We are the ones who, through sin, ruin it. But there is more. Because death with not God's plan he is unwilling to let things stand as they are. The very presence and touch of Jesus begins to reverse the consequences of death in those who are near him and in those who touch him.
She said, "If I but touch his clothes, I shall be cured."
Immediately her flow of blood dried up.
She felt in her body that she was healed of her affliction.
Jesus himself is, as he tells us, the resurrection and the life.
He took the child by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum,"
which means, "Little girl, I say to you, arise!"
In his own resurrection Jesus does more than he does for this little girl of for Lazarus. The new life he gives to us is born of an imperishable seed (see First Peter 1:23). It cannot be destroyed. It is not just new life, but everlasting life.
It is precisely in this context that the call to love and the social teaching of the Church make sense. We are not simply waiting to escape this world and enter heaven somewhere else. We are longing for the resurrection of the body when things will be set right. We long for the Kingdom to come in fullness. To that do not just wait. We work for it and pray for it as well. We unleash the power of the resurrection in our world today. We are meant to be instruments through whom others experience Jesus as the resurrection and the life.
Not that others should have relief while you are burdened,
but that as a matter of equality
your abundance at the present time should supply their needs,
so that their abundance may also supply your needs,
that there may be equality.
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