Things worse than death

Accepting Death

...[T]here is a cultural factor at work in the Western world that must be squarely faced. Death has become the last taboo. I can write about sex and breasts, discuss homosexuality in public, and debate the ethics of abortion, but I must not mention death in civilized company.

Corpses are whisked off to the undertakers' where family members will not see them until they have been "prepared." Even the bereaved themselves find candor difficult. Many is the grieving family that refuses to talk out its grief, even within the family—with incalculable loss of comfort and perspective. Meanwhile, incredible advances in medical science have convinced us we have the right to live.

The Puritans published sermons and books on how to die well; they cherished collected "last words" of Christians who had already gone to be with the Lord. But we find it exceedingly difficult to look death squarely in the face and talk about it.

Consider the following poem, written by Thomas Nashe (1567–1601), an Elizabethan author of no great repute who penned these lines, possibly his best, when he along with hundreds of thousands of others contracted the plague and lay on their deathbed:

Adieu, farewell earth's bliss,
This world uncertain is;
Fond are life's lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys,
None from his darts can fly.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade,
All things to end are made.
The plague fully swift goes by.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Beauty is but a flower
Which wrinkles will devour;
Brightness falls from the air,
Queens have died young and fair,
Dust hath closed Helen's eye.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave,
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds ope her gate.
Come! Come! The bells do cry.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

Haste, therefore, each degree,
To welcome destiny.
Heaven is our heritage,
Earth but a player's stage;
Mount we unto the sky.
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!

It is hard to imagine a modern writer facing death so openly. We are more likely to lionize Dylan Thomas's counsel to his dying father: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." Indeed, after we have accepted our place in God's world and grasped the desperate realities of sin and its consequences, rage may be called for. But Dylan Thomas's rage is not called for. He still wants to be the center of the universe, and is frustrated to the point of rage that he cannot be. Contrast Nashe. His refrain faces reality openly: "I am sick, I must die." And he perceives that in God's universe there is only one possible prayer to follow this unavoidable reality: "Lord, have mercy on us!"

If we turn to Psalm 90, we discover that Moses draws the same lesson from the prospect of death. He sees that death is an expression of God's anger, itself God's response to our sin; he sees that death is therefore a divine limit on our hubris and is not to be thought about as something apart from God's message to us. But after concluding these reflections with the words already cited, "If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due" (v. 11), he adds, "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (v. 12).

Here, then, is no futile flight from death. Moses stares at death, thinks through its relation to life, to sin, to God, and strives to understand what death means. And then he asks for wisdom to live his life in light of that death. He would have utterly scorned the modern mood that wants to live life as if death were not there waiting for us at the end. Moses wants us "to number our days," that is, to recognize the limit that is imposed on us, and to live with that limit in full view. Only in this way can we "gain a heart of wisdom."

The habit of looking at life "from the vantage of the End" I shall discuss more fully in the next chapter. It means, for instance, that we can no longer be quite so distressed if the wicked and ungodly opponent is rich and at ease, for it is written, "Do not be overawed when others grow rich, when the splendor of their houses increases; for they will take nothing with them when they die, their splendor will not descend with them" (Ps. 49:16–17); "life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (Luke 12:15); and it is quite certain that "we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it" (1 Tim. 6:7). Christians will learn to invest in the bank of heaven (Matt. 6:19–21): that is where both their treasure and their heart will reside.

Now let us suppose that your spouse comes home from a medical checkup with fearful news: there are signs that a vicious melanoma has taken hold. The hospital runs emergency tests during the next few days and the news comes back all bad: the prognosis is three months' survival at best, and all that modern medicine can do is mitigate the pain.

I do not want to minimize the staggering blow such news can administer to any family. There are many forms of practical comfort and support that thoughtful people can show. But it must be said that if you are a Christian who has thought about these things in advance, you will recognize that this sentence of death is no different in kind from what you and your spouse have lived under all your life; that you have been preparing for this day since your conversion; that you have already laid up treasure in heaven, and your heart is there. We are all under sentence of death; we are all terminal cases. The only additional factor is that in this case the sentence, barring a miracle, will certainly be carried out sooner than you had anticipated.

I am not pretending this bare truth is immensely comforting. Our comfort turns on other factors. But full acceptance of this truth can remove a fair bit of unnecessary shock and rebellion; for we will have escaped the modern Western mind-set that refuses to look at death, to plan for death, to live in the light of death, to expect death.

Things Worse Than Death

Some time ago I was told by my doctor that I had contracted a rather rare disease. The prognosis was uncertain: the disease varies in its power from being quite mild to being lethal. As the months went by, it became evident that my case fell into the mild end of the spectrum. But the news gave me occasion to think through my reaction to the prospect of my own demise. Three years ago I came down with a heart virus which was at first (wrongly) diagnosed as a serious heart attack. Once again, I could not escape thinking about my mortality.

The hardest part of dying, I decided, was leaving my wife and children. If the prognosis turned vicious, I decided, I would do everything I could with my remaining strength to make the transition as smooth as possible for my wife, and to leave the stamp of a Christian father on my children. But apart from that one tie, I could not think of a single reason why dying would be so bad a thing.

I confess, with some shame, that this assessment did not stem from prolonged meditation on the glories of living with Christ. With Paul, I believe, at least at the formal level, that "to live is Christ and to die is gain," that "to depart and be with Christ...is better by far" (Phil. 1:21, 23), but I suppose I am not spiritually mature enough for these realities to grip me incessantly. Sometimes they do; I do not perpetually live in their light.

But I remembered the fate of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 20; 2 Chron. 32:24–31; Isa. 38–39). When he was under sentence of death, he begged the Lord for fifteen more years, and received the extra span. And in the course of those fifteen years he blew his entire reputation for integrity in one incident prompted by foolish pride. Nor was his reputation alone at stake: the bearing his action had on the future of his nation was disastrous.

That is why I decided there are worse things than dying. I do not know how many times I have sung the words, "O let me never, never / Outlive my love for Thee," but I mean them. I would rather die than end up unfaithful to my wife; I would rather die than deny by a profligate life what I have taught in my books; I would rather die than deny or disown the gospel. God knows there are many things in my past of which I am deeply ashamed; I would not want such shame to multiply and bring dishonor to Christ in years to come. There are worse things than dying.

(D. A. Carson, "Illness, Death, Bereavement", How Long, O Lord?, 2nd ed.)