Let me underscore ... an idea that human minds grasp while human hearts resist: "Death is not the enemy." Just think: if people didn't move on, who could move in? There would be no new poets, artists, or composers. It would all be Bach, Telemann, and Scarlatti--no Beethoven, Brahms or Beatles. Church meetings would never adjourn, graduate students never graduate. Human beings would be as bored as the old Greek gods, and probably up to their same silly tricks.

In other words, death cannot be the enemy if it is death that brings Christians to life. Just as without leave-taking, there can be no arrival; without growing old, no growing up; without grounds for despair, no reason for hope. So without death, there can be no life.