Nearing the end of Christian Believer, we are entering the realm of the last things. The lesson plan for Christian Hope, like much of the rest of the course, was uneven. It seemed to lack focus. Yesterday afternoon, I talked with Lisa about my concerns. Lucking out, the video presentation, from Dr. Will Coleman, was excellent. My prior decision to concentrate solely on the series of questions at the end of the Study Guide for the week paid off.
Since it's eschatology, a major topic is death. One of those questions we considered was our possible experience of those who had faced their own deaths in and with faith, and how that might have impacted us. One member of the class is a cancer survivor, and offered eloquent testimony on how her faith allowed her to deal thoughtfully and honestly with the very real possibility that she might well die.
It has long been my fervent belief that far too many Christians are scared of dying. The eventuality of our own demise becomes a matter of increasing concern as we get older. We begin to lose loved ones. Then, older friends or people who had been important in our lives are gone. Then, reaching middle age, Our peers might die, leaving us trembling not only in grief at our loss, but in the fear that death is no respecter of age or persons. All the same, we who confess faith in a crucified and risen savior should regard that only universal human experience (beyond birth, of course) without any fear or trembling. The grave should have no hold over us as we rejoice that this life, for all its joys and sorrows, is only part of our experience in and with the God who has defeated death.
Not fearing dying, however, does not mean we should not fear death. I want to make a clear distinction here. As I'm using them here (and as I understand them), dying is a physical process through which our bodies move until, at some point, they cease to function. Death, on the other hand, is the emotional experience shared by those who have lost a loved one. For many people, the most grievous experience of death is the loss of a parent. Some, alas, lose siblings. I know a surprising number of people who have lost children. Then there are dear friends, some who die in sad circumstances, others because of illness (either physical or some other kind). As I said last night, while we Christians shouldn't be afraid of dying, we should both fear and respect death, because death is a monster.
If we aren't careful, death can devour people, whole families even. It can destroy marriages and relationships. It can enter homes and never leave, making ever-present not the life that was loved so dearly, but the lifeless corpse that mocks our love, knows nothing of our pain and sorrow. Death can even take over whole communities, even nations. Consider the Tulsa race riot of the 1920's here in the United States, the madness in Kampuchea during the 1970's, or Bosnia in the 1990's. This was death stalking lands, casting its pall as far and wide as possible.
When the Bible says that the wage of sin is death, I firmly believe this is the referent. Not our physical ending, which is both inevitable and little more than our time coming to an end. Death, as I understand it and have tried to describe it here, is this creature that robs our lives of light and joy. It is a creature that demands sacrifice, always hungry, always looking to feed on our desire for it to hear our plea to return to us those we have loved and lost. Its promises are false, its joy in our sorrow and despair creating a never-ending cycle that, if we aren't careful, will swallow us up, leaving us physically alive yet dead in all the other ways that count.
We Christians are not to fear dying; death, however, we should understand as something else entirely. It is a beast that, if we aren't careful, will carry us off before our time. We should never dismiss the pain and grief and loss dying brings; these are the cracked doors and windows through which death enters our lives. The only effective defense is being with those who are experiencing loss. Not saying anything, not doing anything other than reminding them that, in their pain, they are neither forgotten nor alone. This is the fortress that death cannot destroy. This is power of love that is stronger than death. Rooted in the love we have from God in the risen Christ, we can face death together, without fear perhaps, but certainly always respecting its neverending demand to make its way in to our lives and destroy them.
Virtual Tin Cup
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There's an image our parish associate used once in a sermon, that in the fall, when the leaves turn color from green to orange, they're not really "turning color." The orange is always there under the green. Living and dying are as much part of being human as the green and orange are part of the leaf.
But, as the youngest son of a youngest son (Dad and I both much, much younger than everyone else in the family), I had been to more funerals by the time I was a teenager than most people go to all their lives. Literally dozens of beloved aunts and uncles and cousins, all my grandparents, a sister-in-law who died in a car accident leaving my brother to raise his son, not even a year old, and a 3 year old daughter. Now, married to another youngest son, there are all the great-aunts and uncles, aunts and uncles, etc., on his side as well.
And I live knowing that, barring some accident, I'll likely bury my whole immediate family -- not something I dwell on often, but I can't ignore it either. Death is terrible...I'm not sure fear is the right word for me though ... dread, maybe, which is a word that has lost the visceral meaning it once had.
Fear, for me, suggests something perhaps unexpected.
Fortunately, I was raised, as I'm sure is obvious, in an old-fashioned family, that did not screen or protect kids from the realities of life (and death). I wonder about kids these days (heh...) My nephews, for example have never been to a funeral, not because there haven't been numerous opportunities. We hide death, we shield kids from death. I've been to funerals where they laid the body out in the family living room. So much more .... realistic than the sanitized-for-your-protection funerals we have these days. I think the practice says, "This is death. You will fear it less and less."
I consider dread to be the flip-side of awe. As I understand it, awe is wonder tinged with fear. Dread is fear, perhaps even terror, tinged with just a touch of wonder.
I told the class that, should I find myself killed in an automobile accident on the way home, I didn't fear what might follow. For myself. On the other hand, I was - and am - terrified of what such a possibility might do to my wife and daughters. Death has a way of never being satisfied, reaching out to pull in as many as it can. I've seen too many families torn apart by the death of an individual to rest easy on the idea that, somehow, my wife's faith and that of my children would carry them through.
In The True and Only Heaven, Christopher Lasch contrasts the way we separate ourselves not only from the dead, but the process of dying; doctors still work to keep terminal patients from dying at home. Once upon a time, however, a beloved family member would die surrounded by as many members of one's family as could fit in a bedroom. Even small children were led to the dying to say goodbye. He offers a fairly typical example from Dickens, and such scenes were copied by far less able, far more maudlin writers throughout the Victorian and Edwardian eras, both in Great Britain and America.
While I remember attending at least one funeral before it, it was my paternal grandfather's, when I was a month shy of seven years old, that was the first that brought home the reality of what dying meant. I can even remember the optical illusion, my brain demanding to see his chest rise and fall, and the emotional impact when I had to admit I was not seeing something I should be.
While serving Poplar Grove, a woman contracted lung cancer. Just a few months before her death, she sat in the sanctuary, praying. Miriam was, I think, six. Wandering through the building, she came upon Kathy and asked why she was crying. Kathy told me after that Miriam offered her comfort, telling her that God had to love her because her husband and children were so good, because she was such a good bell choir director, and because of how good she and her husband were so good to Miriam and Moriah. They prayed together that evening. When Kathy died, we brought Miriam and Moriah along to the viewing. Miriam in particular was affected, but both, while certainly in mourning for a woman who went out of her way to be nice to both girls, nevertheless went and said their goodbyes. I've always been grateful they had that opportunity. Someone asked me why I would do that since the girls "didn't understand death". I said, "Who does?"
Indeed.
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