Every once in a while, you hear a stunning story about loved ones who are notified of a death in the family that hasn't actually happened. In this case, Alfred and Geri Esposite of Mastic Beach, New York, had been told that their son, Freddy, had been killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer on a Pennsylvania highway. It was an understandable mistake on the authorities' part. For some reason the man who died was carrying Freddy's driver's license.

Freddy was supposed to be staying with his brother Chris, so when Chris got word of his brother's death, he raced home. Geri, the mother, relates what happened next: "He goes downstairs into his brother's apartment, and he saw something on the couch. Chris poked at the lump under the blankets, and his brother awoke. Chris screamed, 'You're dead! You're dead!' And Freddy counters, 'I'm sleeping!'"

That's the story of our lives as Christians. Thanks to the resurrection of Jesus, we don't die. We sleep. The Bible speaks only of Christians who sleep, and even in our sleep we are alive in Christ, consciously awaiting the day Jesus returns to claim his bride, the church.