Happy Deathday

“A larger soul, I think, hath seldom dwelt in a house of clay”. 

So wrote John Maidstone, household steward to Oliver Cromwell, after the latter passed into eternity. Some point out with relish and irony that he died on the third day of September. Oliver too was impressed by the prodigy of dates. 3/9 was the anniversary of two of his greatest victories in battle- Dunbar (1650) Worcester (1651) as well as the day of his first parliament as Protector. So was it appropriate that he died on his ‘lucky’ day?

Death is the final enemy and our diary appointment therewith is our last battle. The Christian is guaranteed to win this skirmish; Christ defeated death and now it is it little more than a grim porter, a doorman to eternity. It is fitting that Oliver’s passing should be on 3^rd September, for it was the day of greatest victory. 

What’s your greatest day? Your graduation? Your wedding? The Christian might say the day of conversion, but even that I think pales with the glory of the death-day, the time we have our appointment with Christ.

A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.

Ecclesiastes 7:1