Romans 6:23

“Romans six… twenty-three. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

You ferried me once, Tombstone.

Dragged my limp body across consecrated dirt.

Shoveled the grave with your bare hands.

Buried me in silence, as if your role gave you dominion over mine.

As if a mortician could write scripture.

But I did not die.

I rose.

Because you are not Death.

You are not Charon.

You are a worker of the pit pretending to own the afterlife—

a man who’s spent so long in service, he’s mistaken obedience for identity.

And I?

I am not bound to the earth.

I speak for Heaven.

You wander this world clutching to a purpose that was never yours.

Mortis carved you from clay and called it servitude.

Now you drift between shadows, thinking rebellion makes you real.

But rebellion without righteousness is rot.

You are still the Ferryman.

Still tethered to a task.

Still rowing in circles, moving corpses from one side to the next hoping that if you ferry enough souls, someone might finally recognize yours.

But I have seen your soul, Tombstone.

And it is empty.

You buried me once and the crowd cheered like I was gone.

But I was only planted.

The Harbinger does not die in the dirt.

He takes root.

And now, like the fig tree cursed by Christ,

you shall wither under the weight of a judgment you do not understand.

You fight to reclaim a stolen role.

I fight because mine is divine.

You ferry the dead.

I declare their sentence.

You want to be something more?

Then you should have faced something less.

But instead, you stepped into the cage with the trumpet of wrath.

You placed your name beside mine on holy parchment,

and the Lord does not look kindly on hubris.

You think I forgot what you did?

The dirt.

The grave.

The silence that followed?

No.

I remember every second.

But this time, you don’t get to bury me.

I bury you.

I dig the hole.

I say the prayer.

And I close the book.

You are not feared.

You are not known.

You are a man pretending to be death—

and I am the man who reminds you what death really looks like.

You’ve spent your life rowing the damned toward judgment.

Now it’s your turn to cross.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

The wages of sin is death.

And I am the collector.

Amen.”