What do you do with death?

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Whenever a people seem outwardly prosperous,
they are less prepared to spend time thinking about tragedy, while times of great suffering can get people thinking
a lot about something other than
the season finale of their favorite TV show or the big game.
~ Michael S.Horton

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My grandparents’ church at Pine Bluff in Mississippi, like many older churches, has a cemetery on the grounds. When we’d visit church, we’d visit graves too.

At the cemetery where my daughter is buried, we were frequent visitors when our other daughters were young. Death wasn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t be avoided.

A healthy respect for dying leads to
a healthier respect for living.

The newspaper headline in last Sunday’s edition:
     APRIL 27 TORNADOES, DEATHS IN ALABAMA

The details included:

• Age 55. Died when the vehicle he and his nephew were in was blown off the highway.
• Age 13. Trapped under her home along with her mother, who survived.
• Age 61. She and her husband were in their home on their knees praying when the tornado hit. He survived, but she was killed.
• Age 54. His house was blown in the lake. He grabbed some debris and held on until rescuers could pull him out. He died the next day at the hospital. His wife also was killed.
• Age 81. Died in the storm 12 days after the death of her husband.
• Age 20. Died with her grandmother.
• Age 67. Died while driving to a storm shelter. A tree crashed through the vehicle, killing him. His wife was able to crawl to the floor bed and survive.
• Age 34. Died with his wife and daughter when the storm struck their home.
• Age 68. A veteran of two tours in Vietnam. Killed by a falling tree top. Entered a demolished house and pulled a woman and two children to safety shortly before his death.
• Age 10. Died while he was with his grandmother at their home. She was holding him in her arms when the storm struck.
• Age 47. Died in her home after telling rescue workers to save the mentally disabled adults who lived with her instead.
• Age 42. Died when the chimney of his home fell on him as he covered his daughter.
• Age 61. Died after being thrown from his cousin’s house as it was lifted, spun and demolished by a tornado.
• Age 72. Died from an apparent heart attack as his neighbor’s house was hit by a tornado.
• Age 44. Died with her husband after being thrown from their home.
• And on and on and on...

Death is no respecter of persons. Obviously.

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Our feeble sentimentalism simply cannot handle
the tragic side of life:
discomfort, sickness, disabilities, death,
evil, depression, fear, anxiety.

They are not realities to be faced, we tell ourselves,
but symptoms of an ignored disease that we can treat
with the proper medication, entertainment,
therapy, and technology.  

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But of all people who should know what to do with death,
shouldn’t it be Christians?

Michael Horton titles chapter 2 in A Place for Weakness as “Good News for Losers.” He notes that Christianity is not meant to make you look cool, prosperous, or famous. It’s not just for the healthy and strong. “Feeling good” is not its goal and “just keep it happy” doesn’t work.

We do not know what to do with sin, evil,
and death in this culture,
but by suppressing the question
we deprive people of the comfort
that comes from the answer.

So believers in Christ should be the people with hope.
The people who console.
The people who point to a higher purpose
instead of “a resignation to meaningless tragedy.”

Horton gets it right that when we anchor our hope in God, the goal of our life changes. And I add, the goal of our death.

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The goal of life is not to be happy, but to be holy;
not to make ourselves acceptable to ourselves and others,
but to be made acceptable to God by God;
not to be gathered together with all
of the successful people in the prime of our life,
but to be gathered unto our fathers and mothers in the faith.

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I can’t explain the deaths in the tornadoes.
Why some lived; why some died.

But because I know the One who does know, I’m asking him:

Lord,
     Use us to send hope to the lives of survivors just as You opened Your arms to the souls of dying believers.
     Because death isn’t our enemy.
     Being without You is.

O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
...But thanks be to God,
who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:55, 57

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We’re talking more about A Place for Weakness at Elizabeth’s.

How comfortable are you around death?