Death is Not Our Friend

On Wednesday, there was an airplane crash at the Long Beach airport. It was a private plane, carrying only 5 passengers and a pilot. The plane crashed during take off and burst into flames, killing 5 of the 6 people aboard. One of the five people killed was a friend. Not a close one, but someone I've worked with professionally in the last two years. He was a great leader in our city and very involved in my organization. I worked closely with him on one of our largest events. I even have emails in my inbox from him from as recent as last month. It's strange and shocking to know that the person who sent that email is no longer here.

Death is not our friend. Moments like this one, learning the news at my desk and being instantly overcome with emotion, with loss, with sadness for his wife and three children, remind me that death was not something we were originally meant to experience. In fact, in the Garden, nothing was farther from being perfectly and fully human than death. When I think about what our community lost, what our organization lost, what our city lost and most importantly and way more profoundly, what his family has lost, I feeling like screaming, "Come Jesus! Come put an end to this brokenness. Come rescue us from this world where earthquakes cause tsunamis and planes catch on fire for no apparent reason."

But, we wait. We wait for Jesus to return and claim us and this world as his own. And it's hard to wait. It's hard to be reminded that for now, we live in a world where death is still claiming lives. But soon, someday, Jesus will show death that he is the victor, once and for all. Then we won't experience days like Wednesday, or last Friday, ever again.

Come, Lord Jesus.