Deal With The Death Issue 1

I've just been checking out the footage of Michel Jackson in rehearsal 36 hours before he died, and i must say it's heart rending (MJ is a childhood hero of mine, I even did a rendition of ‘Bad’ at my grade 6 end of year awards night, yup it was quite a sight, enough said). You can see how energetic and focused he is yet unbeknown to him the end was so near. What strikes me as chilling though, is that the title of his planned final tour 'This Is It," would turn out to be a sort of 'boomerang prophecy' concerning his own life. However, death is the inevitable event we must all learn to deal with early in life if we are going to make the most of this life.

What do i mean 'deal with the death issue?' I remember when i was a youth pastor, we came up with a powerful evangelism skit that portrayed the death of a young man. The end of the skit was a funeral scene that had all the props including a coffin that we bought from a local funeral palour (that's right we bought one). Inside the coffin was me, (yes i was in the coffin and no i was not scared). The skit ended with the agonising mother screaming over the coffin for her son to come back, and then in the middle of her emotional wail i would bust open the coffin and sit up like a zombie with a straight face and in absolute silence. My first comment after the whole auditorium had calmed down was, "The problem with death is....., you don't get to come back." Needless to say those where the easiest sermons i've ever preached. Folk poured to the altar without much persuasion (No i was not fired after that). Death is the one thing that scares most people. What are we so scared of? The strange thing is that we spend our lives in fear of death, yet it is the one certain thing in life. The Bible tells us this in Hebrews 9v27 (NIV) "Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgement..." Don’t let the fear of death push you out of your life, it’s like living all your life whilst on standby, like a DVD player or laptop on hibernate. Sometimes we put off the bungee jump, the swim in the ocean, sky jumping or a trip to the doctor because we are so scared that we might just die. It's as if death kills us before we die. Refuse to give up your life and STAND YOUR GROUND. I’m not done yet on this one, there’s a part 2