I found out the other day that an old colleague of mine had
died suddenly of a heart attack. She was my age, and had two children the same
age as my younger ones.
That reminded me that another colleague from the same place
died in her twenties a few years ago in a road accident in tragic
circumstances. Both of them had worked in the same small department with me.
There were four of us excluding our manager, and now half of us are dead. Death
seems to be ticking us off his list one by one.
That started me thinking of all the other people I knew that
had died prematurely…
Another colleague from that same company died of cancer a
few years ago in her thirties. I worked in another place where one of my bosses
died of cancer, and one of my sales colleagues died in a motorcycle crash. I
remember speaking to him on the Friday and then hearing after the weekend that
he’d been killed in the accident.
I could even think back to school days where two of my
classmates died suddenly in different mishaps.
Then I realised that the longer I live the more people I
will know who will die prematurely. Eventually if I live to 100 years old
practically everyone I know will have died. But that’s because death catches
everyone eventually. No one escapes it. Whether it comes at 15, 25, 45 or 105.
Whether it’s sudden or after an illness or just because the body gets worn out
with age, death will come. It’s the one and only thing you can know about your
future with absolute certainty.
That’s why I think the film Final Destination is actually a pretty accurate micro portrait of
life.
In the film a group of people cheat death in a plane crash.
They leave the plane before it takes off, and watch as it explodes in midair.
In the following days several of those people die in sudden and unexpected ways
(and gruesome of course!), bringing the group to the belief that death is
tracking them down one by one in the order that they should have died. The
chilling conclusion is that even if you escape death once around, death will
track you down and get you eventually. When your time has come, there is no
escape.
I’m not trying to be deliberately morbid in writing about
this. I just feel that reflections on these things can be helpful. Think about
it. The way you view your death can give a pretty good indication of how you
view your life. And how you view your life will affect the way that you live
your life.
You could put death out of your mind and try to pretend that
you’re immortal. After all worrying about it isn’t going to change what’s going
to happen. Might as well carry on and just live your life?
Or I suppose you could face up to the inevitability of
death, and your lack of power to stop it, by living your life to the max,
drinking in all the experiences that life has to offer because you know that
your time may come at any moment.
But deep down I think most of us fear death. The majority of
human beings actually like living, and we like the experiences we have in life,
even if for periods we suffer pain or hardship. Even some of those who suffer
for most of their lives, I venture, are able to find comfort and enjoyment in
places, and live in the knowledge that it’s not supposed to be like this. So
even they live with at least a grain of hope that they may see better days. Death
brings an end to that enjoyment, and an end to all hope. And what is the point
of it if it has to end? We don’t want it to end.
And I think that’s because deep down we know that we are not
meant to die. We were made for more than to briefly appear on the world stage
and then disappear. There’s something that feels very wrong about death, as if
it shouldn’t be happening. We know that it comes to everyone eventually, and
yet we grieve – sometimes inconsolably – when those we love are taken, and the
thought of our own death makes us tetchy and anxious. If death were so normal,
then even the death of children should move us to little more than a
shoulder-shrug.
According to the Bible we were not made to die. We were made
to be perfect, and to experience perfection in God’s eternal presence forever.
And yet, because of sin and the consequences of it, under the judgment of God,
death is a reality. There is a very real sense in which all death is
premature. Just because most people die in their 80s doesn’t make them any less
unfortunate. God made human beings as immortal. Death only exists because God
had to take immortal earthly life away as a punishment.
The irony is that death is not only God’s punishment on sin
– His way of ensuring that those who reject His rule cannot share in His blessings
and His goodness forever. Death is also our only hope, because it is also God’s
way of giving new life.
First, since the whole of creation was put under a curse
because of the sin of human beings, death means that we need not be under this
curse for eternity.
Second, God’s rescue plan, His way of pulling human beings
out from the curse on sin, involved the death of His Son on a cross. Without
death there would be no sacrifice for the Son of God to make, no way of
bringing sin to an end with the finality of a punishment taken in our place.
Third, bodily death gives God the way of sweeping everything
from this life away and starting again. We can look forward to a New Heavens
and New Earth, into which God’s people will be brought with resurrected and
perfected bodies. We can be thankful for the hope of that resurrection, but it
wouldn’t be possible without death.
The difference with the New Creation is that only those who
are in Christ can be part of it, only those who have turned from the sin that
brought the curse, accepted the rule of God’s Christ, and live by faith in Him
in this life, those for whom Jesus made atonement.
So finally, death is a reminder to us, a message, if we will
listen, confronting us with a deadline. We cannot keep on acting like we are
the masters of our own destiny. Death tells us brutally that we’re not. We must face up to our mortality, and
accept Jesus Christ as our only way of salvation, before it’s too late. Without
Him, after death when there is no way back, we will be shut out from the
presence of God, from His blessings and His goodness. We will immortalise our
rejection of Him, and He will turn His back on us forever.
Sobering thoughts… at least I hope so.
In Final Destination
death always gets the victory. It always wins, and that’s what makes it so
scary. But for those who trust in Christ death is not victorious. The Bible
says, in speaking about the Resurrection, “Where, O death, is your victory? Where,
O death, is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). The ultimate victory over death
is that God uses death in bringing the hope of eternal life for those who trust
in Jesus. So perhaps Final Destination
is not all that realistic after all!
