Some things just stink. We stopped by the Devil s Cauldron this summer when we were visiting Yellowstone National Park. It is part of a series of mud volcanoes, formed as water, heated by underground thermal activity, is forced to the surface. The girls couldn t stand it. It stinks , they said, running for the car, and they were right.
Death stinks, too.
Maybe you know it from personal experience. Now you know it from the Bible. Martha says to Jesus, who commands that they roll away the stone from tomb where Lazarus lay, Already there is a stench because he has been dead four days. Death stinks because it takes what is alive and beautiful and turns it into an inanimate pile of rotting tissue and bone. Death stinks because its finality breaks the ties that bind us to each other.