LESSON 163 There is no death. The Son of God is free.

1. 1Death is a thought that takes on many forms, often unrecog­nized. 2It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. 3All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release.

2. 1Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. 2For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. 3The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. 4For it alone will surely come.

3. 1All things but death are seen to be unsure, too quickly lost however hard to gain, uncertain in their outcome, apt to fail the hopes they once engendered, and to leave the taste of dust and ashes in their wake, in place of aspirations and of dreams. 2But death is counted on. 3For it will come with certain footsteps when the time has come for its arrival. 4It will never fail to take all life as hostage to itself.

4. 1Would you bow down to idols such as this? 2Here is the strength and might of God Himself perceived within an idol made of dust. 3Here is the opposite of God proclaimed as lord of all creation, stronger than God’s Will for life, the endlessness of love and Heaven’s perfect, changeless constancy. 4Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God.

5. 1Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be. 2His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. 3It says but this: “Here lies a witness God is dead.” 4And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with fore­heads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so.

6. 1It is impossible to worship death in any form, and still select a few you would not cherish and would yet avoid, while still believing in the rest. 2For death is total. 3Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. 4No compromise is possible. 5For here again we see an obvious position, which we must accept if we be sane; what contradicts one thought entirely can not be true, unless its opposite is proven false.

7. 1The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. 2For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished; killed, apparently, by those who did not want Him to survive. 3Their stronger will could tri­umph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death. 4And with the Father died the Son as well.

8. 1Death’s worshippers may be afraid. 2And yet, can thoughts like these be fearful? 3If they saw that it is only this which they believe, they would be instantly released. 4And you will show them this today. 5There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. 6God made not death. 7Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. 8This the stand we take today. 9And it is given us to look past death, and see the life beyond.

9. 1Our Father, bless our eyes today. 2We are Your messengers, and we would look upon the glorious reflection of Your Love which shines in everything. 3We live and move in You alone. 4We are not separate from Your eternal life. 5There is no death, for death is not Your Will. 6And we abide where You have placed us, in the life we share with You and with all living things, to be like You and part of You forever. 7We accept Your Thoughts as ours, and our will is one with Yours eternally. 8Amen.