*Death, Where Is Your Sting?*

“Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

Father,

When I was under the law I was afraid of death. It haunted me, stalked me, terrified me. The curse of the law hung over me, waiting to destroy me the moment death took me. I knew that the moment I died, I would begin experiencing your awful, soul-crushing wrath. And so I feared death. There was no way for me to escape its icy clutches, no way for me to wriggle free from its unstoppable power. Death and spiritual destruction were my inevitable end. Every day marched me closer to execution. But in your astonishing goodness, you have done the impossible: you have freed me from the curse of death!

Jesus, thank you for submitting yourself to the Father’s will, even to the point of death on a cross. You were the only human in history that did not deserve the curse of death, yet you willingly drank from death’s chalice. Thank you for allowing yourself to be swallowed by death, so that you could destroy death from the inside out. Thank you for submitting yourself to death so that, ultimately, death would bend its knee in submission to you. Death sank it’s fangs into you, only to discover that you would shatter the fangs of death.

Therefore I will not fear death. I will not tremble when I cross the river of darkness. I will walk boldly
through the Valley of Death. The sting of death has been removed. Death has been de-fanged. It can make threats, but they are empty words. Jesus drained death of its power. It can no longer terrify me with threats of Hell and judgment, for Jesus himself took my Hell and judgment on the cross. It can no longer threaten me with God’s wrath, because Jesus himself took God’s wrath for me.

Death you have no power over me. Jesus toppled your throne when he died in my place. I will not grieve like those who have no hope. I will not fear death like those who have no future. Instead, I long to depart this sin-stained world and be with Christ, which is better by far. I have victory over you through Jesus Christ.