In A Horse Walks into a Bar, author David Grossman has a standup comedian say: “Exactly at this minute, more or less, in the old Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, my mother, Sarah Greenstein, went into labor! Unbelievable, isn’t it? A woman who claimed to want only the best for me, and yet she gave birth to me! I mean, think about how many trials and prisons and investigations and crime series there are because of murder, but I’ve yet to hear a single case involving birth! Nothing about premeditated birth, negligent birth, accidental birth, not even incitement to birth! And don’t forget we’re talking about a crime where the victim is a minor!”[1]
Though it’s strange, there’s some very sad logic to this standup comedian’s rationale. Life, even for the best of us, can be hard, full of struggles, pain, disappointments and on and on ending only—in death.
Pretty sad when the only thing that ends our woes is the greatest woe of all—death itself.
That’s why, over and over in the Bible, we have the promise that death is not the ultimate end. Not the final chapter. Yes, we all die; we all sleep. We all do have respite from the toils and trials of this existence. But then we have promise of life, eternal life, in Jesus. “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28).
Never perish! Sleep, yes (which can be a blessing), but Jesus says that those whom He saves will “never perish.” To never perish means, must mean, to, exist, to live—forever, which is, precisely, the promise that we have in Jesus.
[1] Grossman, David. A Horse Walks into a Bar (p. 11). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
