Pangharepan Di Satukangeun Maot

“Sarah is dead.” Anna couldn’t believe the words.¹ Was it possible that her 26-year-old sister was gone? Sarah had been riding her bicycle to work when she accidentally veered into the street and was hit by an oncoming car. Her death left behind a shocked family.

For days, Anna could hardly eat or sleep. As months went by, she cycled through regret, anger, and grief. Every time she would see sibling interactions, tears trickled down her cheeks as she thought about the sister she no longer had.

Death is never a welcome guest. Sometimes, it creeps in with old age and long-term illness. Other times, it comes without warning. 

Maybe you have lost a loved one. Death just doesn’t seem right, does it? It feels unnatural. Were humans meant to die? 

And most importantly, dare we hope for something better—a world without sorrow and death? 

Where Death Began

Perhaps the first man and woman agonized over these questions. 

Their lives did not start out with a knowledge of death. They lived in the perfection of the Garden of Eden, sustained by the Tree of Life. Everything in the Garden had been provided for their enjoyment—except for one tree. God had commanded them, “Of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you must not eat. For when you eat from it, you most assuredly will die!” (Genesis/Bereishit 2:16, 17).

Sadly, Adam and Eve disobeyed this command and suffered the consequences. “For you are dust and to dust will you return,” God told them. Death would be their fate. They were barred from the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life (see Genesis 3). 

Death became a reality almost immediately for Adam and Eve. In order for them to have tunics of skin to wear, an animal had to die. Imagine their pain as they realized the results of their disobedience! The sorrows multiplied when their son Cain murdered his brother Abel (Genesis 4). 

King Solomon was right when he wrote, “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, even the memory of them is forgotten. Their love, their hatred, and their zeal have already perished; never again will they have a share in anything that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes/Kohelet 9:5, 6).

Victory over Death

And yet, Adam and Eve were not left without hope. God had promised: “I will put animosity between you [the deceiving serpent] and the woman—between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel” (Genesis 3:15). 

The serpent is the devil, who has brought death and destruction into the world down to our time. But the offspring—the seed—of the woman would challenge his power and “crush” the head of the serpent, bringing about the serpent’s demise. 

Many scholars in the Jewish community have believed that the seed of the woman is the Mashiach. By crushing the head of the serpent, the Mashiach would undergo calamity—the crushing of his heel—and be “cut off” (Daniel 9:26). But the devil would experience a greater wound—to the head. In the end, the Mashiach would be the victor over the death-bringing devil.

Resurrection and the Messianic Reign

Death is not the end for those who hope in the Mashiach. Though the Tanakh speaks of the finality of death in the present, it also offers hope of a resurrection. We know that resurrection is possible—the prophet Elisha raised the Shunammite’s son to life by God’s power (2 Kings/Melachim 4:17–37), and when a dead man’s corpse touched Elisha’s bones, the man “came back to life” (2 Kings 13:20, 21). But the Tanakh does not only comfort us with stories of the past. It gives us a glimpse into the future. The prophetic book of Daniel promises that “multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake” (Daniel 12:2). The Mashiach’s victory over death would make this resurrection possible.

By His victory, the Mashiach would “console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness” (Isaiah 61:2, 3). This promise will find its ultimate fulfillment in the Mashiach’s reign on the new earth; at that time, “He will swallow up death forever. My Lord ADONAI will wipe away tears from every face” (Isaiah 25:8). 

Job held fast to this hope despite difficult circumstances. He lost much of his wealth, all ten of his children, and his health. But even in his grief and agonizing illness, he declared, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end, He will stand on earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes” (Job 19:25–27). 

Friend, perhaps you have cried tears of loss and longed for something more, just as Job did. The death of a loved one is never easy. But when trials come, we have something to cling to. The promise of the Mashiach gives us hope for resurrection and seeing our loved ones again.

Would you like to learn more about this promised Mashiach? Please contact us at the information on the back of this paper.