When Jesus died he didn't "pass away" into some indistinct ethereal realm. He died. His heart stopped beating, his brain died too, his body stiffened till the rigor mortis passed and he was wrapped in burial cloths. His death wasn't the death of the rich, who slip into eternity in their comfortable sleep. He died as a terrorist, heretic, failed messiah. He was tortured to death by the state. He was, if he were around in our time, in the Gulag, the killing fields, the concentration then death camp, Gitmo, death row on trumped up charges, a road-side ditch with a bullet in his brain.
This is the incarnation writ small in bloody detail. This is just as much his sharing our humanity as the nicer, sweeter aspects we love to focus on. And when he arose he retained these marks on his brow, his side, his hands and feet. He is God crucified. God in Christ took death in all its grisly reality into himself in order that death would no longer reign in us. Christ's death and resurrection puts death to death.
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