Why do Christians celebrate death?

G’day everyone, Dave Deane here, and our question for the week is: Why do Christians celebrate death?

This is a great question, and I can really appreciate why it was asked. I mean, death is central to the Christian worldview. Christians use language like ‘celebrating Easter;’ we call the day of remembering Jesus’ death ‘Good Friday;’ we make a point of gathering together at Church to share this thing called communion, the eating of bread and drink in symbolic remembrance of Jesus’ broken body and blood. And we have passages in the Bible like Ecclesiastes 7:1-4 which says: 

…the day you die is better than the day you are born.
Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties.
    After all, everyone dies—
    so the living should take this to heart.
 Sorrow is better than laughter,
    for sadness has a refining influence on us.
A wise person thinks a lot about death,
    while a fool thinks only about having a good time. 

Or in the words of the Apostle Paul: “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21).

What’s this all about? Are Christians a morbid lot?

Well, let’s take a step back for a moment.

I am a Christian. I believe Jesus Christ is a historical person – truly human and truly God – who was born in Bethlehem; raised in Nazareth; had a public ministry in Galilee, Judea, right out to Perea and Samaria; was tried by a Jewish court and killed by crucifixion under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate; and was buried in the tomb of a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

I believe all of that. But if my beliefs stopped there – with the corpse of Jesus in a rock-cut tomb, well, there wouldn’t be much cause for celebration. In the gospels we don’t see the disciples celebrating the death of Jesus, and the Apostle Paul tells us why. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19 he writes: “… if Christ has not been raised [in other words, if Jesus is just ‘dead’], then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain… if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… [and] we are of all people most to be pitied.”

In other words, Paul is saying if the Christian message ends with the death of Jesus, then it’s pointless. After all, if a Christian is a Christ-one and Christ is dead like any other person in human history, then a Christ-one, a Christian, is just like anyone else at the end of it all – dead.

You can probably see where we’re going with this one. To say that Christians celebrate death is to say only half of what Christian’s believe. And presenting Christianity like that is to make it sound like an absurd worldview; you know, that’s like saying Christian’s are like footy fans who celebrate at half time when their team is losing.

So all of that to say: Christianity is not fundamentally a claim about a corpse in a tomb, it’s a claim about a corpse that was missing from a tomb! Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus – and a prerequisite for a resurrection is, of course, a death, so death is assumed in all of this, but the basis of the Christian faith as the Apostle Paul has told us – is the resurrection of Jesus! It is the LIFE Jesus offers us THROUGH His death!

So when it comes to Easter, what makes the death of Friday ‘good’ is the dawn of Sunday and the empty tomb.

Christians is a Christ-ones, and if Christ Jesus is the resurrected one who defeated death and the grave, then Christians are ones who share in his victory in dying on the cross for our sins, and raising against for our salvation.

The Christian celebration is not that by knowing Jesus life will be as good as it gets. The Christian celebration is the reality that this life is NOT as good as it gets, we will suffer and we will die, but just like Jesus who for the joy set before Him went THROUGH suffering and death, so you Christians can go THROUGH all sorts of trials even death with the peace of knowing Jesus who has been there and knows what lies beyond. 

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’ …thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-57).