There was a dead man on my brother’s patio when he woke up this morning. That’s not something that happens every day, I’m sure you will agree. Even in the urban jungle of central London, where my brother lives, it is a bit of a shocker.

The first warning he had of this occurrence was when there was a loud banging on the front door early in the morning. It was the police. Quite a few police. They trooped through his basement flat, opened the french windows of his bedroom and stepped onto the patio outside. There the body lay. The dead man was in his 50′s and had jumped from the roof of the tall London  town house where my brother’s flat is situated on the lowest level. A witness had seen it all.

There was  a bit of gore which I won’t describe in detail. My brother’s punch bag , ripped from the wall by the falling man, and his cold body on the pavement.

Death falls upon us without warning. An awful intruder, and one we would avoid but cannot: 1 out of every 1 of us must die. As anyone who has lost a loved one knows; death is a monster. We recoil from it.

God, especially, hates death. Jesus wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. Raising Lazarus to life was not enough for Jesus. His campaign against death took him to the cross so that, by destroying death’s power there, all of his friends could enjoy endless, deathless life.

I’m not a Christian because I fear death. That’s a slur beloved of anti-theist polemicists. “The cringing, fearful believer” caricature is one of their favourites. But when death comes close-  I am very thankful to know the reality of the dead and buried, risen and alive Jesus Christ. Only he has the remedy for that most ultimate of individual tragedies. Only he can see us safely through to the other side of death. That goes for you and me – as well as that poor bloke who gave my brother such a rude awakening this morning.