death – a poem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

death

a poem by Simon Camilleri

I’m not afraid of death

I have no fear to take that final breath

I have no need to clasp

And clammer to hold my life within my grasp

Death has no sting

When your life is held by life’s King

See, I have already faced

My death when Jesus died in my place

He died my death for me

Exhausting my sin’s deserved death penalty

What could I do

But repent from my allegiance to

The sin that caused his death

Opening my empty hands to receive this gift

In the blinking of an eye

My life estranged from Life did die

And it was then

That my new life was born again

And so I now fear not

That my body will one day begin to rot

My end already came

My death certificate already framed

My funeral is done

And now my everlasting afterlife has come

And though I still

In some sense live in wait until

Jesus returns again

I do not live in fear of the end

When I farewell mortality’s strife

I won’t face death – but more and better life

So now I am free to live

A life where I am free to give

Free to bless

With blissful self-forgetfulness

Without a thought

Of holding on to what I’ve bought

For Jesus’ sacrifice

Has bought my life and paid the price

That I could never pay

And so for him I live today and every day

Free of fear

Even as death draws daily near

.
“Jesus shared in our humanity so that by his death

he might break the power of him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil —

and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

(Hebrews 2:14-15)

.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery:

We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed –

in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality,

then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

(1 Corinthians 15:51-57)

(2520)