Death has been on my mind lately. It’s not that I have a morbid personality or a fixation on Halloween. It’s that recent life circumstances have forced me to think about it whether I wanted to or not.
For those who are not regular readers of my blogs, I am a Minister of Pastoral Care in a church in Metro Greenville, SC. Part of my job description is to minister to families who have had a loved one pass away. Whereas death is a normal part of my ministerial existence, what happened recently in a space of four days was what put my mind into overdrive as to what I think and believe about death.
On Friday afternoon, September 11, two couples in their 80’s and 90’s who are members of our church were traveling together to eat dinner. A drunk driver coming from the opposite direction crossed the yellow line and hit them head on. All four senior adults were pronounced dead at the scene. Then shortly after midnight on September 15, three 16-year olds in our community, one of whom was a member of our student group, were in a one car accident. Two of the three died several days later from their injuries…including the member of our student group.
What’s your theology of death? Your response might be, “I don’t have one.” My thought is that you at least have random beliefs about death that you have not yet put into a systematic theology. I’d like to share mine as a challenge to you to formalize what you believe about death.
- Death is the most natural thing we do in life.
Some of you are old enough to remember the 1965 hit song of The Byrds entitled “Turn! Turn! Turn.” The opening lines to the song say (and feel free to sing along), “To everything (turn, turn, turn), there is a season (turn, turn, turn), and a time to every person under heaven.” Then the lyrics say, “A time to be born, a time to die….” Are you aware that the lyrics of their hit song are based on a Bible passage? The passage is found in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and was penned by King Solomon, possibly the wisest man to ever live. The words from Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 say, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven – a time to give birth and a time to die” (NASB).
The last time I checked the ratio of life to death is still 1:1. While part of the theology of death involves its certainty, part of the theology of the certainty of death involves why? Why does everyone die? Those who believe in naturalism might offer that man dies because there has not been enough time for evolution to evolve death out of existence. A believer in reincarnation might offer that man must die in order to live a new life. Christians offer this truth as taught in the Bible in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death…” According to the Bible, everyone dies because everyone sins. Death is the consequence for man’s rebellion against God as evidenced by man breaking God’s laws. - Death is the most unnatural natural thing we do in life.
In that same chapter of Ecclesiastes, verse 11 says, “He [God] has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also placed eternity in their heart….” Have you ever wondered why hospitals and doctors offices are always filled? Have you ever wondered why people fight so hard to live? The biblical explanation is that God has placed eternity – the desire to live forever – in our hearts. Instinctively every man knows that though death is natural, it is the most unnatural thing we do. We fight to live as long as we can as an expression of eternity being in our hearts. - Because we don’t know the moment of our final breath, we all need to be ready when it comes.
Again some wisdom from Ecclesiastes found in verse 8:8: “No man has the authority to restrain the wind with the wind, or authority over the day of death.” For each of us the moment of our final breath will remain unknown until we take it. Especially was that the case for the senior adults and two young people I mentioned earlier. Yet even for those on hospice care whose sickness is a drawn out affair, their final breath always catches family and friends by surprise. So what is it that we must be ready for when that final breath comes? Another Bible verse (Hebrews 9:27) answers that question this way, “…it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment.” Because the judgment of God will follow the last breath each of us takes, we better be ready to meet him at a moment’s notice.
Just as it is important for each of us to have a theology of death, it is also important for each of us to have a theology of eternal life. I’d love to share mine with you. Just email me and I will be happy to share it with you.
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