”Where, O death, is your sting?” — 1 Corinthians 15:55 (NIV)
This journey began with sitting. We sat down beside Mary at the feet of Jesus and heard Him name the one thing. We opened empty hands and let the God of hope fill us. We rose to serve and learned to let God give the growth. And last week we found a better question to carry among people — not “Am I allowed?” but “What would love do?”
But there is a place this Mary-and-Martha road eventually reaches that no amount of serving can skip. It is the place the two sisters stood when their brother died.
You remember it. Lazarus is gone four days, and both sisters say the same aching sentence: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21, 32). And Jesus — who knew exactly what He was about to do — did not rush them past the grief. He wept (John 11:35). The shortest verse in the Bible is God, in the flesh, crying at a graveside. Hear that, friend: Jesus does not scold your sadness. He shares it.
And then, standing in the very place where death looked like the final word, He said the thing that reorders everything: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25).
Paul is holding that same truth in 1 Corinthians 15. He looks death full in the face and asks it a question with no fear in it at all: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (v55). Read it slowly, because of what he does not say. He does not say there is no sadness. For those left behind, there is sadness — real, honest, tears-that-don’t-stop-on-schedule sadness. Paul never asks you to pretend.
What he says is gone is the sting.
The sting is the part of grief that whispers this is the end. Closed chapter. Gone for good. And that is precisely what the empty tomb took away. “Death has been swallowed up in victory” (v54) — not managed, not softened. Swallowed. Because Christ was raised as the firstfruit, and everyone rooted in Him comes up in the same harvest. What is sown perishable is raised imperishable. We are clothed with the imperishable, and the clothing is Jesus Himself. Just as we have borne the likeness of the first man, made of dust, we will bear the likeness of the second, the man of heaven. Your loved one who belonged to Him is not a chapter that ended. They live on.
So here is the whole of it, for the woman reading this with a specific face in her mind: you are allowed the sadness. Cry the real tears; Jesus did. But carry this next to the grief — the sting is gone, and the sadness is not the end of the story. Love that is hidden in Christ is never lost. It is waiting.
“Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you” (v58). Sit with the sadness at His feet. And then let the risen One stand you back up.
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This post is part of the At His Feet, In His Service journey — a Mary and Martha walk into rest and mission, for women who love God and are weary of running on empty. We gather live every Tuesday night for Summer at His Feet, and we’re in the final weeks — there’s still room for you. Come walk it with us in the community, where grief and hope are held together and no one carries it alone. Join us at https://awakewomensministry.com.