A short story of hope...that starts with death

He took the cup called death.  As the cup tipped in his hands the dark liquid reflected back to him the agony it would inflict, the breath it would steal and the loneliness that would ensure.

Tormented but not afraid, he drank it down.

The taste in his mouth was salty.  Death poured into him the tears of ten-thousand years of sorrows.  The saltiness turned bitter and the liquid heavyed his heart with the ache of loss.  Loss of relationship, of hope, of strength, of joy, of light and air and God.

He swallowed it down.  The liquid burned as it sank into him.  Stealing his breath he felt the darkness pulling him away from light into the void.  Where once love and belonging filled a chasm of emptiness replaced. Stretching its fingers into all his recognizable parts death locked him away.  HIs strength, his will, his sound, his smile. Death permeated his whole being. Nothing of him was left.

The clarity that death cannot be predicted, tamed or controlled encapsulated all hearts.  Death won, and fear enslaved.  Death knows nothing of freedom or love only that of enslaving emptiness.

Long before he took the cup he took up the banner of love.  Putting on human skin he walked and talked, befriended and taught.  He felt loss and love, content and tempted. He lifted up and encouraged, rebuked and defended.  He cried and prayed, healed and fed. He loved perfectly God above, creation and all who lived.

Death could not comprehend his love, or his surrender.  Death underestimated his power. For three days death locked him away.  But on the third day he took the cup called death and poured into it himself and rose again.  For love is greater than death and in his surrender the power of death ravaged.

He took the cup called death and poured into it himself.  He swallowed up death’s power, it is tamed and under his control.  He broke the chains of fear. He waves still the banner of love. He is light and breath, strength, joy and hope.  He is God. He is freedom. He is able. He is Jesus. And in Him there is no fear.

Hebrews chapter 2:9,14 &15

“...he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

“...he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy...the power of death...and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”