During the sunrise on the first Friday of this month, my Dad passed beyond this world after 96 orbits around the sun. It is significant that this happened while I have been working on a comedy sketch for the Easter season coming in the next few weeks. Written in 2001, it is entitled “Where’s My Sting?” about the confusion when life gets out of Death’s control. The video is a 2008 audio theater version accompanied by sketch illustrations.
Most people fear death above all things, and some use the threat of it as a weapon to get what they want. This places death and those who use it in the status of God and that is why affirming life, healing, nurturing, and resurrection is so important. That is the message of Christ: death is not the final word; nothing, not even death, can overcome the goodness of God; life — life bigger than this material manifestation of it — is the unquenchable will of God.
So, where is Death’s “sting”? The Old Testament prophet Hosea asks the question rhetorically, defiantly (Hosea 13:14). The New Testament writer, Paul, referring to Hosea, identifies the sting as “sin” (I Corinthians 15:55). The sting is opposition to God, who is life.
Being able, as living creatures, to hold this idea and discuss it in countless forms from art to science, is evidence of the supremacy of life, of God. And to produce a comedy about death, well, just think about that.
