The Day Death Tried to Swallow Life

Easter Sunday was a very bad day for Death.

Many godly men and women have found it fruitful to personify death and address it as a character in God’s story — Isaiah, Hosea, Paul, John, John Donne, John Bunyan, to name a few. Following in that long tradition, imagine for a moment what Easter Sunday meant to the ancient enemy of mankind.

“My God, into thy hands my soul I give.”
A man’s last breath, Death’s gain. His sting bit deep,
A deadly cross his bloody fang. Men live,
All under the sun, doomed to dusty sleep,
All hoarded up in his dark jaw. That maw,
With finish-cry, closed on the Son of God.
With glee, proud Death gulps, gluts, and gloats. All saw
His divine meal; hell riots in applause.

Poor Death, so soon you celebrate, yet you
By death have lost, a suicide by cross.
Dumb Death, men know gods don’t die. Forget you
What immortal means? He your gain, your loss.
His life breaks through your teeth, gives you the lie.
When he swallows up the key, Death, you will die.

Ages of Heyday

From the fall of Adam up until Easter morning, Death enjoyed ages of heyday. He had been granted universal reign over the sons of Adam (Romans 5:17). For millennia, Death feasted on men. Like Tolkien’s Ungoliant, Death devours all and remains ravenous.

Solomon forces us to stare unblinking into the insatiable jaws of Death:

What happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. . . . All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. (Ecclesiastes 3:19–20)

As Macbeth puts it, “All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.” And until Easter, when Death swallowed the living, both sinner and saint were left in a sepulchral silence (Psalm 88:10–12; 115:17; Ecclesiastes 9:10). Solomon names this a great evil and makes us reckon with the dominion of Death so that we long for his defeat:

It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil. . . . This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event [death] happens to all. . . . They go to the dead. (Ecclesiastes 9:2–3)

Like a razor-sharp sickle, Death levels all men. No matter how high they grow, all fall the same. Men live . . . doomed to dusty sleep. Under the sun, all march toward Death. The wages of sin leave all hoarded up in his dark jaw. His appetite knows no bounds, and, among the sons of men, God gave it no boundaries (Romans 5:12).

That is, until Death tried to devour more than a man.

Death’s Deadly Gain

Good Friday was Death’s best day. What a triumph the cross must have seemed to him. The man who had the gall to call himself “the resurrection and the life” gobbled down without resistance. A man’s last breath, Death’s gain.

To all outward appearances, Jesus died rejected by God and scorned by men. We know he bore God’s wrath on behalf of his bride. We know he willingly shouldered the terrible mantle of the sins of his elect — from that unkind thought you had yesterday to the horrors of wars, from the smallest lie to the largest fraud, all our envy, anger, violence, hatred, lust, and pride since the history of the world, every instance of the infinite variety of our idolatry. We know Jesus bore the iniquity of us all and suffered the penalty we deserved. But to his foes and onlookers . . . well, his was a swift and terrible end. A brief candle quickly put out.

Even those words “It is finished” must have seemed like a limp surrender, a bloody white flag over a black field (John 19:30). Surely with glee, proud Death gulps, gluts, and gloats over his divine meal. This man is the hope of humanity? Bottom’s up to this Lord of life. He goes down like all the others.

“Good Friday, Death’s greatest victory, proved to be his worst defeat.”

Hell riots in applause. They celebrate the long lore of a coming Death-eater swallowed in a moment (Isaiah 25:8). I’m reminded of a scene from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Aslan is laid on the stone table, gagged, shorn of his mane, bound hand and foot, surrounded by his enemies. The White Witch taunts him as her whetted knife falls. And pandemonium breaks forth. Death dances on the corpse, thrilled with his new prize.

Empty as the Tomb

But then the table cracks. The stone is rolled away. The tomb looms empty. The living cannot be found among the dead.

Poor Death, so soon you celebrate. You launched your victory parade prematurely. You printed the championship merch before the final score. You proposed a toast while the Trojan horse stood within your walls.

Good Friday, Death’s greatest victory, proved to be his worst defeat. A suicide by cross. He failed to reckon with Jesus as fully man and fully God. Dumb Death, no matter how wide you open your mouth, you can never digest immortality. You bit off more than you could chew. Jonah will always end up on the shores of life.

And yet, Easter was a very bad day for Death not merely because he failed to keep down one man. A couple men had escaped his clutches before (Genesis 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11), but neither of those fugitives loosened his grip. Jesus did. He broke Death’s grip. As the firstfruits from the dead, he acts as an emetic for Death. The Lord of life hallowed and plundered Death’s hoard. Poor Death.

Like all the rulers of this age, Death failed to reckon with the cosmic consequences of crucifying the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). He your gain, your loss. What Death acquired through Adam, he lost to Christ (1 Corinthians 15:21–22). The Resurrection gives the lie to Death’s universal dominion (Romans 6:9). As an old hymn puts it, “Death cannot keep its prey; Jesus tore the bars away.” He broke Death’s teeth from the inside so that Death can no longer hold those who have faith in him. Christ is King of the living and the dead (Romans 14:9).

True, Death has not yet been fully defanged. He can still draw blood. We still mourn the effects of his maw. But we no longer fear to face him. He is impotent to cut us off from the Love that moves the sun and stars (Romans 8:38–39). His jaws now open onto life. Thus, in the wake of Easter’s triumph, we can whisper the taunt that we will one day shout: “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:54–55).

The Death of Death

Yet it gets even worse for Death (and thus, better for us). Easter was not his worst day; the empty tomb foreshadows his final bankruptcy. When Jesus descended into Death’s gullet and broke back out through his teeth, he emerged holding the key to Death’s fate. Our risen King tells us,

Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Revelation 1:17–18)

Easter is not only the day of Death’s defeat; it is also the day that Death was doomed to die. One day, the One who triumphed over Death will do away with him altogether. “Death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4). The One who allowed himself to be swallowed by Death “will swallow up death forever” (Isaiah 25:8). When he swallows up the key, Death, you will die.

Easter was a very bad day for Death, but his worst day is yet to come. One day, the Lord of life will complete the victory he began with the empty tomb. Poor Death.