Every day in the United States, 140,000 people die. What makes that more than just a statistic is that sometimes, the person who dies is our father or our mother or our husband or our sister or our brother or our child. When our parents die, they take the past with them. When our children die, they take the future with them. When any loved one dies, they take part of us with them.

C. S. Lewis's celebrated marriage to Joy Davidman has been chronicled in a popular play and then in a movie entitled Shadowland. The relationship was short-lived, for cancer took her life. When she died, Lewis said that the pain of her loss was not localized in certain places or at certain times but that "her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

Every death is a loss and loss always brings pain. The pain caused by death is in fact the price we pay for loving someone.

Death not only comes to others we love; death will also eventually come to each of us. Popular writer and teacher Leo Buscaglia used to say, "Remember, no one will get out of this world alive!" That's the truth.

I heard a wonderful legend about the servant of a wealthy merchant who was in a marketplace of Baghdad securing provisions for his master when he had the most frightful experience of his life. When he rushed into his master's house a few minutes later, his color had drained completely from his face.

"What is the matter with you?" the master inquired.

"Master," the servant replied, "I just now have seen Death in the marketplace, and when he saw me, he raised his arm to strike me. Please master, I am certain he means to take me. Loan me your fastest horse so I can get away."

"But where will you go?" asked the merchant. "I will go to Samarra," explained the servant. "Death will not find me there."

So the merchant gave his servant the fastest horse in the stables, and the servant rode swiftly off to the city of Samarra where he hoped to hide.

The merchant went to the market to get his own supplies and while there he saw Death too. So he inquired of Death, "Why did you raise your hand to strike my servant here a little while ago?"

Death replied, "Actually I meant him no harm at that moment. Raising my hand was a gesture of surprise. You see, I didn't expect to find him here, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

The servant of Baghdad would discover that no matter how fast the horse nor how far the journey, he could not escape his appointment with death.

When God created humankind and placed us in the garden, He gave this command. "Do not eat of the fruit of the tree in the center of the garden or you will surely die." They did ... and they did. And so will we. And so will those we love.

No one will get out of this world alive. Because of that, coming to grips with the reality of death is one of the major tasks facing us today.

Do we have a word from Scripture that will help? I believe we do, in our text. Listen to this word from the pen of the apostle Paul: