Some Brief Thoughts about Death

I am a 23 year old young man who will eventually die.  I may be in relative good health and may have only lived one-third or even one-quarter of my life (or, on the other hand, 99 percent of it), but I will inevitably die.  It is a thought that one may call pessimistic, morbid, or even say is on the brink of suicidal, yet  it is a thought that is infinitely realistic.  The Western mindset (as far as I can tell) seems to be avoidant of death—it says that death is unwanted, and therefore it is something that we put out of our minds and spend millions of dollars to delay.  Nevertheless, all our efforts are for naught, and we die.

As a Christian, I am called to pray this along side the Psalmist (Ps. 90:10, 12):

The years of our life are seventy,

or even by reason of strength eighty;

yet their span is but toil and trouble;

they are soon gone, and we fly away....

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Our days, toilsome and troublesome as they may be, will come to an end.  Their brevity means our mortality, yet there is wisdom to be gathered here from contemplating and reading about the subject.  Here are some of my brief thoughts.

Death Should Not Exist

Why do we mourn death?  Is it not as natural as being born, eating, sleeping, and is shared by humans, animals, and plants alike?  Yet, when we are at a funeral, we cry, struggle to understand what life will be like with out the deceased, or something of that sort.  Even when we see a dead animal (wild or domestic), our souls are stirred.  If you are like me or some of the people I've talked to about the subject , you have even contemplated what it would feel like to watch a person die—the very instant where all of man’s faculties shut down and he breaths his last.

Even now, an eerie feeling is over me as I think about it.  Something is wrong here; not just only with the ruthless killing of one man by another, but in general, with all death.  Each one of us feels it.  I believe it is because the Creator of all Men, Who made us in His Image, did not want us to die.  He wanted to live in with His creation—with us—for all time.  But, we all have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious standard, and that failure’s punishment is death (Romans 3:23; 6:23).  It was the punishment clearly spelled out to Adam and Eve in the Garden, yet they both forsook the goodness of the Lord and sought to become gods themselves at the urging of the lying Serpent (Gen 2:17; 3:1-6).  And we, their offspring, suffer under and perpetuate their generational curse.  With each tear we shed at a funeral and with each second we spend doubting God’s existence or goodness, we suffer it.

Death is Enraging

With death being something that should be foreign to this world, it is understandable for us to detest its presence and effects on our lives.  We hate murder, cancer, genocide, suicide, and anything else that takes loved ones away from us.  We can even hate God when we blame Him for evil and death being in the world, and some could even find that to be grounds for not believing that any higher power exists. 

Yet, while He was on earth, the Incarnate God stood at the tomb of His good friend Lazarus.  We are told that He was "deeply moved in His spirit and greatly troubled" (John 11:33).  Something gets lost here in the Greek-to-English translation; Christ was not bewildered or devastated by the sight.  He was angry, indignant.  The Author of Life saw a period at the end of a sentence that was not supposed to be there.  The King of kings saw the condemned Prince of the World encroaching upon His Beloved.  We, in our sinful finiteness, cannot fathom anger so deep and so righteous.  And, we in our presuppositions about Jesus, rarely think of Him as angry.  We know He is loving, and that He is going to wipe every tear away from the eyes of His Bride and abolish Death in the New Earth, but He is destroying something He hates.    

"The man Jesus Christ laid Death in His grave"

The Death of Christ is something that cannot be fathomed deeply enough.  The Son of God and God the Son, took on flesh and the form of a servant, and humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on the tree of God's curse (Phil. 2:5-8).  The Lamb of God was slain. The Suffering Servant was crushed for our iniquities and His striped flesh brought us peace.  On the Third Day, Christ rose from the dead, because death could not keep a hold on Him, and death was swallowed up in His victory.  We can understand this on a superficial level, but can we ever let it permeate our hearts and souls enough?

The heading of this comes from the well-known song by John Mark McMillan, that, naturally, is an Easter favorite of many.  The words beautifully describe that morning, where Christ "rose to shame the throes of Death and overturn his rule."  It is one of may songs and hymns that describe the Death of Christ in much more beautiful words than I can conjure.  The name of this blog comes from a hymn describing the Cross, and, truly, did ever such love and sorrow meet as it did at Calvary?  "And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing, sent Him to die--I scarce can take it in.  That, on that Cross, my burden gladly bearing, He bled and died to take away my sin."

Our Entrance into His Kingdom

"O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory?"  That is the song that each one in Christ may sing.  Surely, each one of us will die and each one of us will be put in a grave, yet our Lord took upon Himself the sting of our death and will raise us up from our graves on the Last Day.  Now, Death, loosed of all his tyranny, becomes our usher out of this world to the Gates of the Kingdom.  It is not Death that ends our life, but our Lord and our God, who bids us to come Home.

At the end of the second part of his classic allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan describes the deaths of the group of pilgrims with a messenger, coming across the River Death to deliver the news that they, one by one, will cross the river into the Kingdom.

"Hail, Good Woman, I bring thee Tidings that the Master calleth for thee, and expecteth that thou shouldest stand in his Presence, in Clothes of Immortality, within this ten Days."

"I am come to thee in the Name of him whom thou has Loved and Followed, though upon Crutches.  And my Message is to tell thee, that he expects thee at his Table to Sup with him in his Kingdom the next Day after Easter"

"I am come to tell thee that the Master has need of thee, and that in very little time thou must behold his Face in Brightness."

"Trembling Man, These are to summon thee to be ready with thy King, by the next Lord's Day, to shout for Joy for thy Deliverance from thy Doubtings."

"Thou are Commanded to be ready against this day seven Night, to present thyself before thy Lord, at his Father's House."

"He must prepare for a change of Life, for his Master was not willing that he should be so far from him any longer."

We think that Death is the separation from the deceased from the living, yet it is the union of a man with the One who has the full claim upon a man's life.  There will come a time when He will lovingly demand my presence before His Throne and at His Table, so I may not be so far from Him and He may not be so far from me.  My Master will declare that I must behold His face, one that is only a cloudy image in my mind today, but one that will become crystal clear on the day I go the way of all the Earth.

While I draw this fleeting breath, when my eyes shall close in death, 

When I rise to worlds unknown, and behold Thee on the Throne, 

Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee.