The day is dawning cold and wet in my town. It’s supposed to rain all day. And truthfully, the world (or my tiny corner of it) looks just like it did yesterday morning, and the morning before.

But it’s not.

It’s not the same at all because on Monday morning, my best friend’s father died. The weather’s the same, but the world is different, because a good man who lived a good life is now living a shiny new version of it somewhere else.

Well chosen words have already been written and will long be spoken about Bud. They will be true. He was a kind and committed husband for over 50 years. A veteran of World War II. A public servant in our city for decades. He raised two daughters and a son with the beautiful, porcelain-skinned wife of his youth, and cared for her faithfully until she passed through the doorway of death without him.

He loved golf and good books and southern gospel; he knew his neighbors and they knew him. He enjoyed other people’s children and Longhorn football – and he ended his days where he wanted most to be: at home, in the tiny frame house where all the best stuff happened, that had ever happened to him.

The paper isn’t thrown yet. I don’t know what this morning’s headline will be. But I know what it should be. In the tallest type – the size reserved for wars and elections and stunning national disasters, it should read “DEATH DEFEATED!”

It will be a travesty if it does not.

And the subhead should read: “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Because every time a child of His dies, the Son of God’s stunning victory is re-enacted. Because He took the beating and deserted the lonely tomb, death is no longer a dead-end for us. Because He goes and prepares us a place, what used to be a prison is a prized destination instead.

“DEATH DEFEATED!”

We weep on this side. And it’s right that we should. But on the other side, the Savior throws back His beautiful head and laughs the laugh of Lazarus at a paperboard foe that has no fangs. And he spreads His arms wide, showing the ancient love marks on His palms, and folds in an eternal embrace each one who belongs to Him. Our loss is heaven’s gain.

I see the paper on the driveway. And in a moment, I’ll retrieve it. When I unfold it, I’m sure I’ll see that they’ve gotten it wrong. That the story to end all stories has been ignored.

But only here. Only now.

Where time isn’t, and where Jesus is enthroned, the news of the day is the same news every day: “DEATH DEFEATED.”

Hallelujah and Amen.

“My sheep recognize my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them real and eternal life…No one can steal them from out of my hand.” (John 10: 28-29, The Message.)

© Leigh McLeroy 2004