When I was six, my mother had a stroke and lost the ability to move and speak. She regained her abilities, with only the slightest slurring of her speech in times of stress.

When our first child was born, my mother had cancer. For five hours, surgeons removed malignant tissue from her tongue, jaw, and throat. After surgery, she had one shot for pain. No pain pills. While other patients who had undergone similar, but much shorter, surgeries were still in intensive care, my mother was cleaning her house.

My mother seemed invincible, but death took her in the end. Of course.

After my mother’s death, I dreamed she was cooking dinner. My brother came to her door, expecting to help me sort through her things. I whispered to him, “The doctors said she was dead. But she didn’t die. She made us dinner. Get in the kitchen and eat.”

Death seemed so out of character for her, but the Bible explains that death is in character for all of God’s rebel creatures. “Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

Death was, however, completely out of character for the God who came down. The holy one who set prophets dancing even in the womb. The one whose free fall from heaven’s height to lowly feeding trough broke the sound barrier, causing the angel-spangled heavens to sing, “Glory to God in highest!” The one who had spleen and spittle like us but was without sin. The one who blessed children, loved lepers, and forgave sinners. The one whose perfect obedience to God’s just law qualified him for eternal life. The one whose death for the salvation of his people darkened the sky and caused the earth to shudder. The one who burst from the tomb with the power of an indestructible life. The resurrected one who fried fish on the beach for his flabbergasted disciples. The one who urged Thomas to touch the scars on his hands and side. The one who appeared to thousands after his resurrection.

Only one person ever vanquished death. That is why the resurrection of Jesus is still news two millennia later. And why it is such good news for all who believe: “For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (Romans 5:15).