The Sting

This is little story told at a funeral recently. It has a play on words about a "sting" which is vivid in its application:

Once a boy and his father were driving along the road in the family car, when a bee flew in the window. The boy got very upset when he saw the bee buzzing around his head, and he began throwing his arms around madly, almost causing an accident. Maybe you think he was a coward, but that boy was a special case. You see he was allergic to bee stings! The doctors had told him that if he ever got stung by a bee again he would die of the sting! So naturally enough the boy was very frightened of the bee. The father tried to brush it out of the car window, but couldn't make it go out. So he quickly grabbed the bee! But it escaped, and buzzed around the boy's head again making him scream with terror this time.

Well, the bee was still in the car, but the father pulled over to the edge of the road and said to the boy, "It is OK, you are all right." Then he opened his hand, and there sticking into his palm the boy could see the bee sting! His father had allowed the bee to sting himself! He had taken the sting out of the danger. There was no danger about the bee any more.

The pastor told that story to show us all that Jesus Christ has taken the "sting" out of death itself. He let death "sting" Him instead of ourselves, so we could live forever and never die. How wonderful. The Bible tells us about that "sting" being taken out of death by Jesus Christ:

"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:55-57)

The sting of death is sin - and the strength of sin is the law. Sin makes us unable to face a Holy God after we die. We cannot keep God's Law. But Jesus Christ has fixed that for us, He has given believers the "victory" or made us winners over death. Praise God, we will never really die when we trust in Jesus as our Lord.

Author Unknown