DEATH
One of the most common ‘hurts’ that people share with us is the pain of losing a loved one or the fear of death. People write things like ‘the death of my grandmother last year’ and ‘worrying about dying and what happens after death’. This issue used to be the most common response when we first started asking people ‘what hurts the most?’ but has been overtaken by negative emotions, relationship problems, injustice and family.
Here are some key statistics:
This is the fifth most common response that we get, one in ten people give this as their answer.
It’s more common for women to say death is the thing that hurts the most compared to men.
It’s the fourth most common issue raised by under 18’s, at almost 12% of their responses.
Death is one of the few things that unites all human beings. It’s the great leveller regardless of wealth, status and ethnicity. We all die. One out of every seven people who responded to our survey told us that death, bereavement or loss was the thing in life that hurts the most. Many were specific: some people had lost both parents while others had lost wives or husbands, young children or grandchildren. Some people had even lost all their family members. Others had lost brothers and sisters in their early twenties and one told of the people they loved being murdered.
Who is qualified to speak to these people? I’m certainly not but I know someone who can speak from experience about the deepest possible pain. And I want to introduce him by quoting a powerful modern day parable:
The Long Silence
At the end of time, billions of people were seated on a great plain before God’s throne. Most shrank back from the brilliant light before them. But some groups near the front talked heatedly, not cringing with cringing shame – but with belligerence.
“Can God judge us? How can He know about suffering?”, snapped a pert young brunette. She ripped open a sleeve to reveal a tattooed number from a Nazi concentration camp. “We endured terror ... beatings ... torture ... death!” In another group a Negro boy lowered his collar. “What about this?” he demanded, showing an ugly rope burn. “Lynched, for no crime but being black !” In another crowd there was a pregnant schoolgirl with sullen eyes: “Why should I suffer?” she murmured. “It wasn’t my fault.” Far out across the plain were hundreds of such groups. Each had a complaint against God for the evil and suffering He had permitted in His world. How lucky God was to live in Heaven, where all was sweetness and light. Where there was no weeping or fear, no hunger or hatred. What did God know of all that man had been forced to endure in this world? For God leads a pretty sheltered life, they said. So each of these groups sent forth their leader, chosen because he had suffered the most. A Jew, a negro, a person from Hiroshima, a horribly deformed arthritic, a thalidomide child. In the centre of the vast plain, they consulted with each other. At last they were ready to present their case. It was rather clever.
Before God could be qualified to be their judge, He must endure what they had endured. Their decision was that God should be sentenced to live on earth as a man. Let him be born a Jew. Let the legitimacy of his birth be doubted. Give him a work so difficult that even his family will think him out of his mind. Let him be betrayed by his closest friends. Let him face false charges, be tried by a prejudiced jury and convicted by a cowardly judge. Let him be tortured. At the last, let him see what it means to be terribly alone. Then let him die so there can be no doubt he died. Let there be a great host of witnesses to verify it.
As each leader announced his portion of the sentence, loud murmurs of approval went up from the throng of people assembled. When the last had finished pronouncing sentence, there was a long silence. No one uttered a word. No one moved. For suddenly, all knew that God had already served His sentence. 44
Jesus is qualified to speak to us about the deepest possible pain because that is what he endured. And so it is to Jesus that we turn today... what would he say to us? What would he do? What has he done?
Jesus weeps with us
The first answer comes from one of the shortest sentences in the English language and it is found in the Bible: Jesus wept. Why was Jesus weeping? We discover that he was weeping because of a recent bereavement. He has just seen two things: the tomb of a dead friend and the grief of those around the tomb who he knew and loved (you can read the whole story in John 18).
There is something very affecting about seeing and hearing others grieve. I was once with an 18 year old friend sat on a mountain who had just been told that her mother had tragically died in an accident on that same mountain. She let out a cry of utter despair that was like nothing I’ve ever heard before. It deeply affected me.
Jesus also wept and his tears speak to us. Does God really care about us? Jesus wept. Does our pain matter to Him? Jesus wept. Does God ever shed a tear? Jesus wept. His tears speak a thousand words, they tell us of a God who cares, a God who knows and a God who weeps.
If you are grieving very profoundly at this moment in time – perhaps your loss has been recent – then I would suggest that this verse is of great importance to you - Jesus wept. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. And sometimes we are not ready for words. Were Jesus physically present with you right now, I am sure that one thing he would do is cry with you.
Death is an enemy Jesus came to defeat
Jesus doesn’t simply weep with us. He also fights for us. The Bible says: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where,
O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting...thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 45
Jesus does not view death as a reality that we just have to learn to cope with and accept. He says death is an enemy that he came to defeat. That’s how Jesus views death – it is his enemy. However, there are many ways that we can try to fight death on our own. 46
Pursuing health
As a nation we spend billions of pounds on health care, keeping fit and beauty products. Arthur Lydiard was an athletics coach and the ‘father of jogging’. He produced two Olympic champions and was credited with inspiring the worldwide jogging craze. It is said that at one point he was running 200 miles a week. Arthur was a healthy man who lived until he was 87 when he collapsed from a suspected heart attack in a Texas hotel. Like all of us even he couldn’t hide from the inevitability of death.
Living in denial
There are two ways to live in denial; one is to dance with death and the other is to avoid the subject altogether. So on the one hand there are those who enjoy high risk sports and love the thrill of death-defying sky dives but there are also many who live in denial by avoiding the subject. We don’t talk about it. We use different words for it. We turn off the news when it gets too depressing. We live in fearful denial. The problem is you can dance with death or shut it out but it still finds you and it will still find the people you love.
Ambition
Some think that perhaps if we are rich and successful enough we will find a way out. Simon Cowell said recently in an interview that when he dies he would like to have his body cryogenically frozen. “It’s an insurance policy. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. If it does work I’ll be happy. If it’s possible, and I think it will be, why not a second crack? Does that sound crazy? I think it’s a good idea. I have a feeling that if I don’t do it now, I could regret this in 300 years time.” 47
Even if this was really a possibility it doesn’t deal with the inevitable we can only cheat death for so long. And it’s hardly a hope for everyone. So none of these ways to fight death are really enough. We need someone stronger than death to fight for us.
Enter Jesus
Jesus claimed to be that person. Jesus once said “I lay down my life – only to take it up again. No one takes it from me but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to take it up again.” 48 Some people have chosen when to die, but no one can claim that they chose when they were born or they chose to come to life again. Jesus made that claim. He chose to be born, he chose to die and he chose to rise from the dead.
In films the most powerful villain is usually the last to be destroyed; it would be quite underwhelming if they died in the very first scene. In the Bible the last villain to be defeated is death because in a sense it’s the most powerful, it’s the reason all the other villains exist. With death defeated injustice, fear, sickness and war all melt away. If you can abolish death, you in turn totally strip all the other enemies of their power. 49 Jesus broke the power of death on the cross and will one day destroy death forever.
Jesus rescues us from eternal death
So Jesus weeps with us, Jesus fights for us and he also offers us hope. Jesus rescues us from eternal death and offers us eternal life.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him.
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 50
The message of Christianity is that God loves you. And Jesus came to save you not condemn you or tell you off but to save you not simply from death but from eternal death. This is good news but to understand this good news we need to understand something of our plight. If someone was drowning and I threw them a life ring I am sure it would be well appreciated but if this book came with a free life ring I’m not sure it would make a great deal of sense!
CS Lewis once said “God whispers to us in our pleasures, but shouts to us through our pain, it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world” 51. Death speaks to us of our plight. Death raises very important questions such as; why is our world broken? Why are we broken? How did this happen? Death tells us that something has gone wrong.
There was a holocaust survivor who was invited to the trial of those responsible for the cruel deaths of his own family members. When he saw the accused he fell to the floor and began to weep. Journalists later asked him if he was weeping because he was so overwhelmed to see these men finally brought to justice. He replied “No, I wept because when I saw those men I realised they were just men. Men like me. And I was capable of everything they did”. 52 One philosopher made a similar point when he said “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts.” 53
The Bible says we are not simply victims of death in need of hope but that we are rebels who brought death into the world and we need to be rescued. Death is here because of us. Long ago, right at the beginning, someone made a choice that had consequences. It was the choice that any one of us would have made and it brought death into the world (you can read about that choice in Genesis 3).
People can make empty statements when someone dies but occasionally they may say something very true. One such statement is “you need to make your peace with God”.
And that is a very true word of advice. The Bible says each one of us should “be reconciled to God”. Urgently as a highest priority we must be reconciled to God. The Bible describes God as a Father waiting for his wayward child to come home. We are that child and God is waiting.
For a moment lay aside thoughts of death and grief for those around you and contemplate head on the prospect of your own death. Are you ready to die? Have you made your peace with God? The Bible says there is a fate worse than a painful death. It is eternal death. Jesus came to rescue you from that also. There was a famous London preacher in the 19th Century who gathered crowds of thousands called Charles Spurgeon and he once said this: If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for. 54
Let my words be your warning, as they stand between you and that terrible fate. I say to you with all my heart; you desperately need to be rescued. The amazing news is that Jesus has provided that rescue. There is hope.
Jesus offers us hope of eternal life
We began by reading one of the shortest sentences in the English language, and on the day that Jesus wept because of his friends he also said something very bold. He said this: I am the resurrection and the life, he who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. 55
Jesus offers this amazing hope to every person that if we believe in him we will never truly die but be with him in heaven. That means death isn’t the end. In many ways it’s only the beginning. CS Lewis put it like this at the end of the book The Last Battle: “And so for us this is the end of all stories, and we can most truly say they lived happily ever after.
But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. And all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: and now they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” 56
Heaven is a real place with real people. It’s a lot like earth on a really good day. It’s not a place that is impossible to imagine but it is more wonderful that we can fully imagine. What makes heaven truly amazing is that we get to be with Jesus. There is something so amazing about being with the one you love. I remember when Christine and I were first dating we spent so much time together, it didn’t matter what we did, it just mattered that we were together.
Jesus is the best person in the universe to be with. He’s more interesting, more fun, more kind, more loving than anyone else. He is what makes heaven amazing. We get to be with Him. The way to go there is not by being religious or trying harder.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 57
44. Anon but quoted in John Stott, The Cross of Christ
45. 1 Corinthians 15: 54–57
46. Taken from a talk by Matt Hosier, Gateway Church, Poole
47. Simon Cowell, quoted in GQ magazine
48. John 10: 17–18
49. Matt Hosiers illustration
50. John 3: 16–18
51. CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain
52. Source unknown
53. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1965
54. CH Spurgeon: ‘The Wailing of Risca’ December 9th, 1860
55. John 11: 24–26
56. The Last Battle, the last page
57. John 3: 16