on death

A woman from Dylan’s house church died unexpectedly of leukemia yesterday morning. Nine months ago the diagnosis came, and things were looking up, and out-of-the-blue she felt sick with a fever and then died a few hours later. She was only middle-age and left behind a loving husband and several teenage kids. The shock felt by family is immeasurable, and the shock felt by her loving house church is but a glimpse of what her immediate family is going through. I thought about this a lot last night, and I kept remembering St. Paul’s words in Philippians, where he talked about yearning to die and be with Christ in paradise.

He’d been there before, been swept up to the “third heaven”, that place called Paradise where the dead redeemed live in rest and tranquility, taking deep breaths and even (as Revelation seems to imply) reign alongside Christ. There’s a lot of ambiguity and confusion in the church regarding what happens when someone dies, and the modern conception of “heaven”—this ethereal, pie-in-the-sky place where we sit on clouds and play harps all day—doesn’t really make one share St. Paul’s enthusiasm (“He must be nuts!” we say). Without getting into the long (albeit fascinating) history of where this modern idea of heaven came from (or, rather, evolved from), I’ll just say that it’s wildly off-base. The Bible doesn’t really tell us much about the afterlife; it’s called Paradise, from the Greek paradeismos (or something like that), which was a Greek word depicting a beautiful garden with trees and orchards and fountains and a high gate protecting it from hostile forces. It is derived from a Persian word that was used in reference to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (the most exquisite gardens in the history of mankind to-date). The Jews took this Greek word and used it in their Greek Old Testament, and they used it to talk about the Garden of Eden. I like the idea of paradise being the Garden of Eden, in the realm of God (“But wasn’t the Garden a physical place? And isn’t Heaven a spiritual place?” Our preconceived notions of heaven as a “spiritual” place as opposed to a “physical” place should be rattled simply by Jesus reigning bodily and physically in heaven; heaven refers to the realm of God and shouldn’t carry with it supra-spiritual overtones). Regardless, we can be sure that paradise is a pretty great place to be. It speaks of rest, relaxation, “taking a breather”. Paul, having been there, speaks of being there, in contrast to being “in the body” (that is to say, in his perishable body living a perishable life in a perishable world), as being “far better.” Personally, I anticipate death and am excited about it; not in some passively-suicidal way, but in a mature and logically-thinking way.

I am of the opinion that the funerals of the redeemed should be joyous occasions where we celebrate the fact that our loved ones now dwell with God and are resting and, perhaps, ruling with God until the day when God remakes the heavens and earth and gives his people new bodies in which they’ll live and reign in this new earth. I want my funeral to be filled with upbeat songs and dancing and I want people to drink good wine and to take shots and to share laughter and love and be jealous of my current state. Yet at the same time, I know that this doesn’t fully take into account the great loss felt by death. It would be super-spiritual to say, “Death is a great gift!” but that’s ignoring the reality of what death is. Death, while perhaps being an integral and beautiful piece of God’s original creation, has taken up the guise of the executioner, now unleashing its wrath upon God’s image-bearing creatures. Death drops its scythe upon all of mankind, and the depth of the loss is felt by everyone. We were not meant to die. We were meant to develop into fully-flourishing human beings and to stay that way. Death brings it all to an (apparent) end. Death is a reminder that God’s new world, though inaugurated with the resurrection of Jesus and experienced in various degrees in the here-and-now, is not yet here in its fullest form. Death still raises its ugly head and suffering still runs rampant. Though defeated, evil continues to flourish and prosper. Death reminds us of this. Even those who have been closest to God, most devoted to God, most in love with God, feel the sting of death. Yet for those who are members of God in Christ, the sting of death is taken away—death is not the end of the story. Jesus rose from the grave. He conquered death. And we who have participated in Jesus’ death and resurrection by aligning ourselves with him and his cross have conquered death as well—though death may sinks its teeth into us, the victory belongs to us and to our King, who has gone into death and come out the other side.

I am reminded of St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonian Christians, who were in great anguish over the deaths of some of their fellow Christians. They presumed that since they had died, then they would not participate in God’s new world. Paul’s rebuttal, seen throughout the letter in various ways, is an adamant “NO!” to this idea. The dead are with Christ in paradise and will get to participate in God’s new world. That strange, apocalyptic, and metaphor-riddled text in 1 Thessalonians 4, where Paul talks about Jesus coming to earth as the royal king to deal with the problems—and the redeemed helping him in that text—give a more-than-certain hope to those who have lost loved ones. Death is not the end of the story. Those who have died are with Jesus, and when Jesus appears, they will appear with him in glory—and those in Christ who have not died will join them! When Jesus appears, all the righteous dead will be flanked at his sides, joining in the “cavalry charge”—and those who are “on earth” will take their stand with their brothers and sisters, will take their stand alongside Christ, and they will receive—we will receive—new bodies and will inherit a new universe where we will live and reign with God.

St. Paul tells the Thessalonians, “Do not grieve like the pagans, who have no hope.” He is not saying, “Don’t grieve.” Jesus wept over the loss of his friend Lazarus—he felt the sting of loss, felt the bitterness of death, even before he experienced it himself. We find Christians mourning over Stephen, the first Christian martyr, while acknowledging his presence in paradise. Death hurts. The loss is overwhelming. Anyone who denied this, especially on religious grounds, is a nut-case. Yes, there’s hope. But that doesn’t eliminate the loss, the pain, the suffering death causes. We are to mourn, but unlike the pagans, we are to mourn with hope. We are to focus on the future, that day when we will be reunited with our loved ones who have been lowered into the ground, that day when we will join them side-by-side and reign along with them in the new universe.

I’m tired and I’m not even going to bother editing this post. These are just things I’ve been thinking about. My sympathies go out to Dylan’s friends and to the family of the woman who died (I don’t even know her name). My prayer is not that people will deny their pain, or try to color it up with religious lace, but will acknowledge the hurt and the loss and, simultaneously, find hope in the cosmic and eschatological future. Though I know that’s easier said than done.