That’s what St. Paul said in his Second Letter to Timothy. The complete text is: “Our Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed death and brought life to light through the Gospel.” (1,10)
With this assurance, we really would have no reason to fear death. Any fear of death is actually without basis. If we are consistent to our Christian faith which we should not only profess but should also live out, we know that when it comes and however it comes, it is the time when God, our Father and Creator, wants us to be with him.
We know that death is just a transition from our earthly life of trial to our definitive home with God in heaven. The crucial point is that we try our best, with the help of God’s grace, to do well in our earthly life. That is to say, that we manage to develop the love we are meant to have --the love of God and love of neighbor.
That’s when death can be considered like a rose in bloom that the gardener now decides to cut in order to put it in his house. Otherwise, or when we fail in our test of love in this earthly life, we also can be cut by the gardener but as a weed to be thrown out or burned.
We need to examine how our attitude is towards death which is unavoidable in our life here on earth. It’s, of course, a worthwhile exercise because many of us today have a wrong understanding of death that would lead us to unnecessary fears. Also, the many riveting concerns we have at the moment often prevent us from doing this important and crucial exercise.
Death should be understood, first of all, as a consequence of sin. In the beginning when our first parents were still in the state of original justice, death was an unknown. They were not supposed to die. Their and our immortality was supposed to cover not only our spiritual life but also our bodily life.
But death as a consequence of sin has been redeemed by Christ already. Remember what St. Paul said about this: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” (1 Cor 15,55) With the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, the curse of death has been removed.
And so, we should not be afraid of death anymore. As long as we have the same attitude that Christ had toward death, we will consider death as a liberation, a transition to our eternal life of bliss with God in heaven, a happy conclusion of our creation and redemption by Christ.
Our attitude toward death should the same as that of Christ who freely accepted death as way of bearing all the sins of men, so that the death of Christ, who is the Son of God made man, can fully repay the debt that man cannot repay due to his sin against God.
That is why Christ welcomed death. He did not avoid it. He went to it when it was the time to die. “I lay down my life, that I may take it again,” he said. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (Jn 10,17-18)
With Christ’s death, the sting of death as a consequence of our sin has been removed. The eternal death that was due to us because of our sin has been conquered with Christ’s resurrection to the eternal life. Intriguing indeed to consider that with Christ’s own death, he destroyed death!