The Sting of Death
Friday, March 7, 2025
“I’m not afraid to die.” – John Wooden
Coach John Wooden, who led the UCLA Bruins to a record 10 NCAA basketball championships over a 12-year span from 1964 to 1975, spoke those words in one of his final interviews. Born on October 14, 1910, in Hall, Indiana, the “Wizard of Westwood” went home to be with the Lord on June 4, 2010 at the ripe old age of 99.
The reason for his fearlessness in the face of death wasn’t because of his 10 championship rings or the fact that The Sporting News had named him the Greatest Coach of All Time in its 2009 poll. "I have always tried to make it clear that basketball is not the ultimate,” Wooden once said. “It is of small importance in comparison to the total life we live. There is only one kind of life that truly wins, and that is the one that places faith in the hands of the Savior."
“If I were ever prosecuted for my religion,” he added, “I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.”
Here is what another great man of faith, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, had to say on the subject of death…
“We have ‘hope’ beyond this life. We will die soon; and still our ‘hope is from him.’ May we not expect that when we face illness, He will send angels to carry us to His bosom? We believe that when the pulse is faint and the heart is weak, some angelic messenger shall stand and look with loving eyes upon us and whisper, ‘Come away!’ As we approach the heavenly gate, we expect to hear the welcome invitation, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’ We are expecting harps of gold and crowns of glory; we are hoping soon to be among the company of shining ones before the throne; we are looking forward and longing for the time when we shall be like our glorious Lord – for ‘We shall see Him as He is.’
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come to pass: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” I Corinthians 15:54-57 (BSB)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
