by Roland Wrinkle
The Unspeakability of “Death.” Death was cooked into Creation at least since Cain and Abel. But death during these current troubles is different. It tends to strike while the perishing loved one is in some measure of isolation. Those left to anguish and grieve are left to anguish and grieve in a similar kind of isolation. We have limited in-person contact with each other. At best, emails of condolence. Online memorial services. We weep, wail and lament either alone, or in limited gatherings. This is obviously a terrible situation.
The Centrality of Death in Our Scriptures. Yet death is central to the Story of God and the Story of Jesus, as told in the 66 books of the Bible. Carolyn Ritchie, arguably one of the great matron saints of our church, and I were talking on the patio one morning after services and confirmed to each other, “We don’t talk about death enough.” We have developed a culture where the topic is mostly avoided. We dance around death. Create euphemisms. Tip toe by the graveyard. The reasons are self-evident, straightforward and understandable. It’s just that it isn’t Christian.
And Those Scriptures Have Much to Say About Death. Yet Scripture talks about death, calling it “death,” 465 times. Death is the cornerstone of the Story of Jesus and the theology of Paul. Imagine what the New Testament would look like if we removed all of the stories, teachings, principles, discussions and red-letter utterances of Jesus about death? We would reduce it to little more than a manual on how to lead a good life. We would need Tony Robbins or Joel Osteen—not Jesus.
The Roman church in the first century lived in a time and place mired in death (and pandemics). Paul taught them: [D]on’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? …. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. (Romans 6)
And to the Corinthians, Paul was emphatic that death and resurrection was the hinge upon which the door of Christian faith opens: “For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; …[and] those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (Read 1 Cor 15.12-18). Psalm 23 doesn’t say “into the valley of the shadow of death;” it says “through” it. Through to the other side. There is no reason to fear the “valley of the shadow of death” precisely because God walks with us and comforts us. The Israelites were rescued from exile and death “[b]ecause the Lord kept vigil that night to bring them out of Egypt.” (Ex 12.42). He no less keeps vigil over us… and our loved ones.
Death As Sleeping. Why did Paul refer to the dead as “those who have fallen asleep”? In fact many biblical writers used the concept of sleep and sleeping to convey what happens when we die (and are awaiting the Second Coming when heaven comes down to, and merges with, earth in the promised New Creation; or, as Jesus refers to it, “The renewal of all things.” [Matt 19.28]). I can count 33 occasions when the Old and New Testaments use “sleep” (koimao in Hebrew and yasen in Greek) to describe physical or bodily death. And I can’t see how this can be explained away as a pastoral “softening” of otherwise harsh verbiage (à la “passing”) in that the authors never shied away from calling death “death” and the dead “dead” over 800 times. (mut and em being the Hebrew for dead and death and thnesko and teleute being the Greek equivalents). Should this bring us comfort? Of course it should! If Paul is adamant that our own bodily resurrection at the Second Coming is the lynchpin of the Christian Faith, how can sleeping in the arms of God, resting our heads on his bosom, strike terror into a rational, believing, bible-reading heart? And, you know what? You can’t have resurrection without first dying (with the numerically trivial exception of those who happen to be alive at the Second Coming (1 Thess. 4.14)). That’s how resurrection works.
A Notable Note. But here’s what I can’t figure out. While God has chosen to defeat death, He has apparently not chosen to defeat separation. Our loved ones sleep in the protective cradling of the Lord, but we who are left are left to grieve the resulting separation. I’ll leave that issue for another day. But it should suffice for now that: “The Spirit himself testifies ‘we share in the sufferings [of the One who suffered for us] in order that we may also share in his glory.’” (Rom 8.16). And God also comforts us by sending the Spirit to hold our hands during the torments of such sudden separation. One of the Spirit’s stated vocations is to serve as the “Comforter.”
Dryden said, “Death in itself is nothing; but we fear to be we know not what and we know not where.” He certainly wasn’t talking about confessing Christians. Christians know the what and the where. Thus, “Do not fear the one who can merely inflict bodily death….” (Matt 10.28, my paraphrase).
Where Does All this Leave Us?
We can have confidence in the promises of God… because the One “who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us” so that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Rom 8).
We can endure suffering…because the One who came before us and was present at Creation endured greater suffering on our behalf.
We can persevere in the face of our loved ones dying alone…because the One who died feeling the anguish of being alone and abandoned on a Roman cross committed Himself
to the will of God.
We can take comfort that our loved ones who die during an isolating pandemic do not die alone, but are sleeping in the arms of the One who created them, loves them and sustains them.
We can have patience because… “[T]he Lord himself will come down from heaven [not the other way around], … and the dead in Christ will rise first. … And so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thess 4).
And yes, Carolyn, we can talk about death…because we are followers of Jesus, who conquered death through his resurrection as the prototype of our own resurrection.