Prayer: Death is an Encounter with the Living God

The inner side of death is encounter with God's own self. In the case of Jesus, it is an astonished encounter of the Son with the heavenly father, and, in our case, since we are sinners, not only a blessedly astonishment but at the same time a shattering encounter with the absolute holy. And yet it is encounter, and indeed the sum and summit of all conceivable encounters. Death is encounter with the living, Holy God and none other. 

Gerhard Lohfink, Is This All There is? P. 135