A little girl was riding in the car with her dad on a sunny summer afternoon. Suddenly, she let out a blood-curdling scream.
A bee was buzzing around her head.
“Help me, daddy!
Help me!” she cried.
“It’s going to sting me!”
The father calmly pulled the car to the side of the road, reached out, and caught the bee in his hand. Immediately, his daughter stopped crying. But then the father grimaced, let out a quiet, “Ouch,” and opened his hand.
The bee once again buzzed free in the car.
The little girl once again began to scream.
But then the father opened his hand and showed it to his daughter. There, stuck in the palm of his hand, was the tiny stinger.
“The bee can buzz all it wants,” he told her.
“But it can’t hurt you.
It’s lost its sting.”
Death is always buzzing menacingly around our heads.
And death stings. Pain pierces our hearts as we attend the funerals of those we love. The fear of death is common to us all. Not only the fear of pain or suffering.
Not only the fear of the unknown. But also the pangs of a guilty conscience and the fear of facing a holy God.
Nobody wants to talk about death. Nobody wants to think about death. And yet it is always there, like a bee threatening to sting.
But that’s why Jesus came. He came to take death’s sting in our place. Jesus suffered death in all its horror. He suffered the physical torment of the cross, but he also suffered the wrath of a holy God for our sins and failures.
Look at Jesus’ hands.
He took the sting for us.
He suffered death. And then he conquered death forever by rising from the dead on the third day.
Death may still buzz around our heads. One day, we all will have to face it.
But death can do us no lasting harm. It has lost its sting. Jesus took the stinger for us.
And because he did, we will live even though we die. Death is just a door we pass through on our way to heaven.
We don’t have to fear facing God, the Judge, because he has already justified us – declared us innocent – through faith in Jesus.
And one day – on the Last Day – even our buried bodies will live.
Look at Jesus’ hands.
Death has lost its sting.
“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 15:55-57).
Pastor Andrew Schroer has been a pastor for over 25 years and is currently serving at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Edna, Texas.
You can find his latest books, “364 Days of Thanksgiving” and “364 Days of Devotion,” on Amazon.com.
