We Christians sometimes refer to death as “sleep.” It sounds really weird when you don’t have a context for it, but we’re taking that view from Jesus Himself when He went to resurrect Lazarus (John 11:11-15). Death is not the end for Christians, it is more life than before! Considering we will be resurrected later, it makes sense to call it sleeping (1 Thessalonians 4:14-18).
Jesus died for our sins and came back to life to give us the eternal life that removes the sting of death (John 3:14-17; 1 Corinthians 15:54-55). It’s like encountering a wasp but then finding out it has no stinger. When our bodies die, our souls go from this life to the next one, and for those who believe in Jesus, we have eternal life with God Himself both now and after we die!
In the sermon Sunday morning we touched on 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. Think about when you go camping. You’re in a tent (or tabernacle), but only temporarily. When you’re done in the tent you go home, to your house. Or think about being swallowed up, like by a whale or other large creature, except instead of being overcome and swallowed by death, you are miraculously caught up and swallowed up by life!
For the Christian, dying isn’t technically dying at all. It is becoming more alive than we’ve ever been! Dying becomes like changing clothes. Dying becomes as natural as sleeping and then awaking the next morning.