Work Makes One Free vs. Death is no Match

Acts 2:24  But God raised [Christ] up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.


(and in The Message) But God untied the death ropes and raised him up. Death was no match for him.


Peter stands among the crowd of Jews of Jerusalem that are wrestling with the startling reality that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah.  Peter says these powerful words that resonate centuries later:  Death was no match for Jesus.  It was impossible for death to hold him in its power. 


It's the deepest revealed secret of our faith.  However it appears to us, death has no real, lasting power in our world.  It never did, it never had a chance.  It's impossible for death to be the final word.  Sometimes we can get trapped in that thinking that its a battle between Good and Evil in such a way that Evil might just have a chance.


Several years ago, I was able to walk through the gates of Dachau concentration camp with the iron words "Works make one free" over the gate.  As I walked with my family through this monument gravestone of brutality and death, I saw that in this place meant for death there are now three places of worship on its ground.  Each place there is an opportunity to light a candle in honor of someone who died and as a symbol of the light of love that conquers death.


I am still struck by the power of the symbol.  A small candle is lit, quivers into life, and a tiny light shines in a place meant for absolute destruction and darkness.  The light, no matter how small, always conquers the darkness.  No matter how dark, the dark is not strong enough to keep the light from burning.  The moment a light is lit, a little of the darkness is instantly vanquished. It is courageous and brave to light a tiny candle and to stand on the side of Love when the darkness seems so great.


How the enemies of our souls would like us to believe that "Work makes one free"!  As if our freedom is  still being worked out!  As if we have to battle against the darkness because it might win!


No matter what happens in the course of any day on this planet, death is no match for Christ.  The Light and Love of God will win in The End. And The End will be the most spectacular Genesis of all things being made whole.


Last night I read a brief article about some terrible abuse some children endured under the hands of adoptive parents.  I felt real anger towards these people and the others who they represent who could be such monsters.  I have no space for grace for them in my heart and can only try and believe that God could love them still.  I know in my head that people who do horrendous things are people who have believed the biggest lies--that absolute power brings love.  These people have learned that the only way to gain control over their own fear of death is to control others with the threat of death.  They are working out their own (anti)salvation with suffering and atrocity. People that live this way believe that they can save themselves. 

However big or small our own atrocities are, when we believe that "work makes us free" it is actually a life of living in hell, trying to earn our own passage to our own security. When we have to save ourselves, in little and big ways, we become consumed with death, not life, and death wins in us.  When we are consumed with death and avoiding it, we bring death to others.

But when we live in the reality that death is no match for Christ, that the battle has been won, that no matter how bleak things appear that the deepest secret is and will be revealed--why, then, we live differently. We hope, we dream, we vision, we are really free.

Peter says these words to us everyday:  it was impossible for death to hold Christ in its power.  And so, it is impossible for death to hold us.  We are heaven-breathing, life-living, dream-catching, freely giving kind of people.  It changes everything.

Death, it's no match for us.