WHEN I AM DEAD

Paul AremoOluwa

Arlington cemetery graveyard white tombstones

          When I am dead. And my body lay in a temporal home.

   All may seem lost and gloom may abound.

“Death is inevitable,”

I hear them say with shrill voices of agony and pain.

    The saints of Jesus do not treat topics such as death a sacred one to be encoded by whispers and silence. It is not a forbidden discussion in our circles.

   We speak of it. We chat about it. We mock death. We laugh at its illusion of victory.

   We once lived as mere mortal men—in sheer terror at the mention of death. But not anymore. We have tasted the freedom of life Christ brings. We are no longer slaves to the fear of death. Rather, we anxiously embrace it when it’s time.

A brief moment of silence on earth exchanged for endless moments of glory. Death to the soldiers of Christ is a win-win situation. One who breathes without Christ is dead.

   But those in Christ without breath truly live.

   We are never caught off guards.

We are not attached to this fading fallen world to mourn it when we are gone. Besides, don’t we always groan in this present body bedevilled by constant incapacities?  We seek to be further clothed with a better body. We envision a better country.

       
Like Susana Wesley—on her death bed, we leave one last instruction to those who afterwards shall follow,

“After this brief departure sing my favourite hymn."

    We have tasted a scintillating victory before we taste the sour grape of death. Yes, but truly forever, the sweet taste of victory is afresh as this aged eyes grow dim.

Death bears us witness.

We asked it, it returned no speech but silence.

“Where is your sting, O death?” For it knows that we know he knows what we know.

    We are the only breed of people who dare death. Where there are screams of loss, in assurance and steely gaze we chant,

“It is gain! What a gain!”

For beyond the distant shores of the human world—hidden away from mortal ears and hearing, the Spirit trumps,

“Blessed are those who sleep in the Lord.”

So do the saints seek to rest from their toils.

  Surely the Lord gives His beloved ones sleep.

     
     In the day the icy fingers of death shall claw, we remember, our Saviour no longer hang on the cross. Neither his remains in a tomb. He became the First Born from the dead.

He brought many sons into His victory and glory.

    
        Let us now sing since the grave had lost its sting. Let these tears of grief turn ecstatic ointment for our Saviour we shall soon meet.

   Frightened!

Our fears are frightened. Because we embrace death with smiles on our faces.

   No more grief. No more sorrow.

In one act of grace and for all eternity the Lamb of God carried both to His cross. Engulfed in a moment, our pain dissolved in His. After the darkness and earthquake that came, He possessed a name, Emmanuel. God forever with us.

    Let our banners rise against the sun like sails against the wind. Here our motto is but one in our hearts,

                      “None of these things move us.”

   
    We are the believers in Christ. This is our song. The song of the redeemed. The song no one else knows or can learn.

The sounds of radical saints sings,

“Hail! All Hail!”
     to our General who has Emboldened us, Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and Life— in whose hands the keys of Life and Hades are firmly held in His grip. We are His and He is ours.

                   Death is inevitable!
                   Say no more. We know!
But so is our resurrection into immortality inevitable as well.

We alone live freely in a world bound without chains.

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