New Perspective
For centuries it appeared to human beings that the earth was stationary and that the sun moved around it. Then a man named Copernicus came along and proved that what seemed obvious on the surface was not, in fact, true. It was the earth that was moving around the sun, not the sun around the earth; and that discovery has changed our understanding of our physical reality ever since. What Copernicus did to our perceptions of the earth and the sun, the risen Christ can do to our understanding of death. Those early conclusions we come to as children about death, are not the deepest truth, although they appear to be from the surface observation. What we need here is a Copernican revolution at the image level, and I want to suggest that the risen Christ can effect such a change if we will open ourselves to the light and perspective He can shed at this point.
The Power of Life
Before the second world war, there was a grave in Germany sealed with a granite slab and bound with strong chains. On it an atheist had inscribed, “Not to be opened throughout eternity.” Yet somehow a little acorn had fallen into some crack, and its outer shell “died.” Years after, everyone saw a huge oak tree which had completely broken up the slab, still having the inscribed arrogant words. The new life of the acorn had openly displayed the power of life. –A. Wetherell Johnson
Carried to His Room
In a home of which I know, a little boy, the only son, was ill with an incurable disease. Month after month, the mother had tenderly nursed him, read to him, and played with him, hoping to keep him from the dreadful finality of the doctor’s diagnosis—the little boy was sure to die. But as the weeks went on, he gradually began to understand that he would never be like the other boys he saw playing outside his window. Small as he was, he began to understand the meaning of the term death, and he too knew he was to die.
One day his mother had been reading to him the stirring tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table, of Lancelot and Elaine the lily maid of Astelot, and about that last glorious battle where so many fair knights met their death.
She closed the book as her little boy sat silent for an instant, deeply stirred. Then he asked the question weighing on his childish heart. “Mama, what is it like to die? Mama, does it hurt?” Quick tears sprang to her eyes and she fled to the kitchen, supposedly to tend to something on the stove. She knew it was a question with deep significance. She knew it must be answered satisfactorily. So she leaned for an instant against the smooth surface and breathed a hurried prayer that the Lord would keep her from breaking down before the boy and that she would be able to tell him the answer; the Lord did tell her. Immediately, she knew how to explain it to him.
“Kenneth,” she said to her son, “do you remember when you were a tiny boy how you used to play so hard all day that when night came you were too tired even to undress and you’d tumble into your mother’s bed and fall asleep. That was not your bed, it was not where you belonged. You would only stay there a little while. Much to your surprise, you would wake up and find yourself in your own bed in your own room. You were there because someone had loved you and taken care of you. Your father had come with big strong arms and carried you away.
“Kenneth, darling, death is just like that. We just wake up some morning to find ourselves in the other room. Our room where we belong, because the Lord Jesus loved us and died for us.” The lad’s shining face looking up into hers told her that the point had gone home and there would be no more fear, only love and trust in his little heart as he went to meet the Father in heaven. He never questioned again. Several weeks later he fell asleep just as she had said and Father’s big, strong arms carried him to his own room. –Peter Marshall
The Advance Miner
The following story was told by Robert Hughes from the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
Dr. Hughes’ father was a coal-miner in northeastern Pennsylvania. His job was to check the mines for methane gas before the miners went down into the mines. Every morning, he would descend alone into the mines, taking with him the safety light, and he would check out each of the tunnels and shafts of the mine to make sure that there was no deadly methane gas present. Of course, if the light of the safety lamp would so much as flicker, he would have to run for his life because it would detect the presence of methane gas. And then after checking the mine, he would rise up to the surface, and there would be all the miners gathered around expectantly waiting for him to announce, “It’s OK; it’s safe, you can now go down into the mine.”
And as Dr. Hughes used the illustration, he said, “That’s what Christ has done for us. Coming up out of the depths of death, He has announced to all who are gathered here in this life on earth: ‘It’s OK; it’s safe. You can enter death, into the darkness and the unknown. It’s safe because I have been there and checked it out. It has not been victorious over Me. I have overcome it, and I will be with you in death even as I have been with you in life.”
I Feel the Bottom
Years ago, Dr. Arthur John Gossip preached a sermon entitled, “When Life Tumbles In, What Then?” He preached it the day after his beloved wife had suddenly died. He closed with these words:
“I don’t think you need to be afraid of life. Our hearts are very frail, and there are places where the road is very steep and lonely, but we have a wonderful God. And as Paul puts it, ‘What can separate us from His love? Not death,’ he writes immediately. No, not death, for standing in the roaring Jordan, cold with its dreadful chill, and conscious of its terror, of its rushing, I, too, like Hopeful in Pilgrim’s Progress, can call back to you who one day in your turn will have to cross it, ‘Be of good cheer, my brother, for I feel the bottom and it is sound.’”
Death the Transformer
I’ve learned something through all my experiences—that every exit is also an entrance. Every time you walk out of something, you walk into something. I got into this world by dying in the womb—and it must have been painful to get ripped out of that familiar place—but that was the prerequisite of my getting into time and space. You know at the end of my life in history, there’s going to be a similar kind of transition experience. And if we can get at the terror of death by saying it is a transformer rather than an annihilator, then also we can get rid of the idea that death is a thief and is taking something that is rightfully ours, which is the basis of all the rage that I know.” –John Claypool
Making a Buck Right Up to the End
In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Ken McAvoy, a cancer patient who doctors say has only months to live, is doing a booming business with his offer to deliver a message to the deceased for twenty dollars. He placed two advertisements in a regional magazine offering to contact people on the other side and has fielded dozens of calls from people seeking his services. In the first week, he had five responses. By the second, he had more than two dozen. Messages ranged from “I love you and will join you soon” to a simple “Why, Dad?” from a child cut out of a will.
Holding Death Back
A woman became very ill. After a time of hospitalization, she returned home, but was confined to bed. Her eight-year-old daughter was not aware of the terminal status of the illness.
This little girl stood outside the bedroom door one afternoon as the doctor, along with her father, visited her mother. She overheard the doctor say, “Yes, I will be frank with you. The time is not too far off. Before the last leaves have gone from the trees, you will die.” The little girl’s presence was not detected.
Sometime later, the father came to the breakfast table to find that his little girl was not there as he had expected. After searching for her, he saw her out in the front yard. His heart was broken as he watched her picking up leaves that had begun to fall. She was using thread to tie them back only the limbs of the tree. –Rex Humbard
Death as a Triumph
Sir Edward Jones attended the funeral of Robert Browning in Westminster Abbey, but he didn’t like it. He knew this great poet, the virtues of his character, the abiding faith in his soul, the influence of his life, and he said the funeral was too sad and somber. “I would have given something,” he wrote, “for a banner or two to wave, and much more I would have given if a chorister had come out of the triforium and rent the air with a trumpet.”
Jesus’ Victory
What death did to Jesus is nothing compared to what Jesus did to death.
Medical Jargon
I recently visited a very seriously ill man in a local hospital. I was told that he was “pre-terminal” which evidently isn’t quite terminal, but is expected to be so. I started thinking. Can’t that really be said about everyone? Aren’t we all “pre-terminal”?
The Larger Perspective
Easter is God’s everlasting “Yes” to humanity’s troubled question: “If a man dies, shall he live again?” Not too long ago, James Gordon Gilkey, one of the Christian leaders in Portland, Oregon, was told by his physician that he had fallen victim to an incurable disease. There was no possible way by which death could be averted, or even long delayed. When this man heard the news, what did he do? Here is his own account of the hours which followed: “I walked out to my home five miles from the center of the city. There I looked at the river and the mountain that I loved, and then—as the twilight deepened—at the stars glimmering in the sky. I said to them, ‘I may not see you many times more. But, river, I shall be alive when you have ceased your running to the sea. Mountain, I shall be alive when you have sunk down into the plain. Stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen to the sea.”
Catching Up
When we physically die, in a sense we are just catching up with out baptism.
Birth and Death
It seems to me that a good analogy for death is birth. The child, before birth, must certainly feel secure and safe. The environment, however limited, is warm and comfortable. The unborn infant knows what to count on in its existence. Birth must seem like death to the child, being thrust in such a traumatic way out of the comfortable and known. We would say to the child, if it were possible, that it is all a part of the plan. We would assure the child that there was even more love, and even grander existence awaiting the child than could be imagined. We would say, “You can’t believe the world that awaits!” But we cannot give those encouraging words. The child must pass through before finding out. Death is like that. We have to leave all that we have known. There has been security in our existence, in spite of its limitations. We know what we can count on. Death takes us from the comfort and safety, ending only life we can imagine. For the person of God, however, there is awaiting an even greater existence. There is more love and the possibility of service and life than is beyond our imagination. It is all a part of the plan. God would say to us, “You can’t believe the world that awaits!”
Not Lost
A little girl whose baby brother had just died asked her mother where the baby had gone. “To be with Jesus,” replied the mother. A few days later, talking with a friend, the mother said, “I am so gireved to have lost my baby.” The little girl heard her, and remembering what she had told her, asked, “Mother, is a thing lost when you know where it is?” “No, of course not.” “Well, then, how can Baby be lost when he has gone to be with Jesus?” Her mother never forgot this. It was the truth.
Heaven’s Demographics
I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those whom I would have kept on earth until they were older. God is peopling eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and women. –Jim Elliott
Epitaph
I am told that an Indiana cemetery has a tombstone (more than a hundred years old) which bears the following epitaph:
“Pause Stranger, when you pass me by,
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so you will be,
So prepare for death and follow me.”
An unknown passerby read those words and underneath scratched this reply:
To follow you I’m not content,
Until I know which way you went.
Then They Will Understand
Down below the surface of a quiet pond lived a little colony of water bugs. They were a happy colony, living far away from the sun. For many months they were very busy, scurrying over the soft mud on the bottom of the pond.
They did notice that every once in a while one of their colony seemed to lose interest in going about with his friends. Clinging to the stem of a pond lily, he gradually moved out of sight and was seen no more.
“Look!” said one of the water bugs to another. “One of our colony is climbing up the lily stalk. Where do you suppose he is going?”
Up, up, up he went slowly. Even as they watched him, the water bug disappeared from sight. His friends waited and waited but he didn’t return.
“That’s funny!” said one water bug to another.
“Wasn’t he happy here?” asked a second water bug.
“Where do you suppose he went?” wondered a third.
No one had an answer. They were greatly puzzled.
Finally, one of the water bugs, a leader in the colony, gathered his friends together. “I have an idea. The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk must promise to come back and tell us where he went and why.”
“We promise,” they all agreed.
One spring day, not long after, the very water bug who had suggested the plan found himself climbing up the lily stalk. Up, up, up he went. Before he knew what was happening, he had broken through the surface of the water, and fallen onto the broad, green lily pad above.
When he awoke, he looked about with surprise. He couldn’t believe what he saw. A startling change had come to his old body. His movement revealed four silver wings and a long tail. Even as he struggled, he felt an impulse to move his wings. The warmth of the sun dried the moisture from the new body. He moved his wings again and suddenly found himself up above the water. He had become a dragonfly.
Swooping and dipping in great curves, he flew through the air. He felt exhilarated in the new atmosphere. By and by, he lighted happily on a lily pad to rest. Then it was that he chanced to look below to the bottom of the pond. Why, he was right above his old friends, the water bugs! There they were, scurrying about, just as he had been doing some time before.
Then he remembered the promise: “The next one of us who climbs up the lily stalk will come back and tell where he went and why.”
Without thinking, he darted down. Suddenly he hit the surface of the water.
“I can’t return!” he said in dismay. “At least I tried, but I can’t keep my promise. Even if I could go back, not one of the water bugs would know me in my new body. I guess I’ll just have to wait until they become dragonflies, too. Then they’ll understand what happened to me, and where I went.”
And the dragonfly winged off happily into his wonderful new world of sun and air. –Doris Stickney
Housing in Heaven
A bus driver and a minister were standing in line to get into heaven. The bus driver approached the gate and St. Peter said, “Welcome, I understand you were a bus driver. Since I’m in charge of housing, I believe I have found the perfect place for you. See that mansion over the hilltop? It’s yours.”
The minister heard all this and began to stand a little taller. He said to himself, “If a bus driver got a place like that, just think what I’ll get.”
The minister approached the gate and St. Peter said, “Welcome, I understand you were a minister. See that shack in the valley?”
St. Peter had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when the irate minister said, “I was a minister, I preached the gospel, I helped teach people about God. Why does that bus driver get a mansion, and I get a shack?”
Sadly, St. Peter responded, “Well, it seems when you preached, people slept. When the bus driver drove, people prayed.”
Plutarch’s Consolatory Letter to His Wife
The messenger you sent to tell me of the death of my little daughter missed his way. But I heard of it through another.
I pray you let all things be done without ceremony or timorous superstition. And let us bear our affliction with patience. I do know very well what a loss we have had; but, if you should grieve overmuch, it would trouble me still more. She was particularly dear to you; and when you call to mind how bright and innocent she was, how amiable and mild, then your grief must be particularly bitter. For not only was she kind and generous to other children, but even to her very playthings.
But should the sweet remembrance of those things which so delighted us when she was alive only afflict us now, when she is dead? Or is there danger that, if we cease to mourn, we shall forget her? But since she gave us so much pleasure while we had her, so ought we to cherish her memory, and make that memory a glad rather than a sorrowful one. And such reasons as we would use with others, let us try to make effective with ourselves. And as we put a limit to all riotous indulgence in our pleasures, so let us also check the excessive flow of our grief. It is well, both in action and dress, to shrink from an over-display of mourning, as well as to be modest and unassuming on festal occasions.
Let us call to mind the years before our little daughter was born. We are now in the same condition as then, except that the time she was with us is to be counted as an added blessing. Let us not ungratefully accuse Fortune for what was given us, because we could not also have all that we desired. What we had, and while we had it, was good, though now we have it no longer.
Remember also how much of good you still possess. Because one page of your book is blotted, do not forget all the other leaves whose reading is fair and whose pictures are beautiful. We should not be like misers, who never enjoy what they have, but only bewail what they lose.
And since she is gone where she feels no pain, let us not indulge in too much grief. The soul is incapable of death. And she, like a bird not long enough in her cage to become attached to it, is free to fly away to a purer air. For, when children die, their souls go at once to a better and a divine state. Since we cherish a trust like this, let our outward actions be in accord with it, and let us keep our hearts pure and our minds calm.
Mixed Message
A Philadelphia legal firm sent flowers to an associate in Baltimore upon the opening of its new offices. Through some mix-up, the ribbon which bedecked the floral piece read “Deepest Sympathy.” When the florist was duly informed of his mistake, he let out a cry of alarm. “Good heavens,” he exclaimed, “then the flowers that went to the funeral said, ‘Congratulations on Your New Location!’”
Appointment in Samarra
Legend says that it happened in the streets of Damascus. A merchant sent his servant to the market. When the servant returned, trembling and agitated, he said, “While I was at the market, I was jostled by someone in the crowd. I turned to look and saw that Death had jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture. Master, please lend me your horse so I can escape. I want to ride to Samarra. There I will hide so that Death cannot find me.” Later that same day, the merchant himself was in the marketplace, and he also saw Death in the crowd. He said to her, “Why did you startled my servant this morning by making a threatening gesture?” Death replied, “That was no threatening gesture; it was simply a start of surprise. I was startled to see your servant in Damascus, for we have an appointment tonight in Samarra.”
The Sting of Death
The master preacher Donald Grey Barnhouse was widowed at a young age. The death of his wife left him and a six-year-old daughter in the home. He had real difficulty working through his own grief, but the hardest part was to comfort and explain the death to his daughter. He later recalled that all of his education and theological training left him at a loss.
One day he and the little girl were standing on a busy corner at a downtown intersection waiting for the light to change. Suddenly a very large truck sped by the corner, briefly blocking out the sun and frightening the little girl.
To comfort her, Dr. Barnhouse picked her up, and in a moment, the wisdom of God broke through and he was able to explain to his daughter:
“When you saw the truck pass, it scared you, but let me ask you, had you rather be struck by the truck or the shadow of the truck?” She replied, “Of course, the shadow.”
He went on to explain that when “your mother died, she was only hit by the shadow of death because Jesus was hit by the truck (death).” The Psalmist reminds us that God is with us even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
What Death Is Not
Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the Dawn has come.–Rabindranath Tagore
Not to Fear
Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. –An Aged Astonomer
Defining Terms
What the caterpillar calls the end, God calls a butterfly.
Waiting for Death
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails in the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon or white cloud, just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “There, she’s gone!” Gone where? Gone from my sight—that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight—to the place of destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her; just at the moment when someone at my side says, “There! She’s gone!” there are other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “There she comes!” And that, friends, is dying. –Mary Pickford
Scam of the Month Club
Recently Psychology Today had a contest they called Scamarama, asking their readers to send in a creative scam. In the March 1984 issue, they printed their winners. This one took their Grand Prize:
Wish you were born rich? Not you can be! If you are one of the growing millions who are convinced of the reality of reincarnation, here’s a once-in-a-lifetime offer!
First, leave us ten thousand dollars or more in your will. After you pass away, our professional medium will contact your spirit in the other world. Then you tell us when you’re coming back and under what name. Upon your return, we regress you, at age twenty-one through hypnosis to this lifetime and ask you for your seven-digit account number.
Once you give us the number, we give you a check—on the spot—for your original investment plus interest! The longer you’re gone, the more you will receive! You may come back to find yourself a billionaire!
Show your future self how much you care—leave a generous “welcome-back” present. We’ll take care of the rest.
A Little Child Shall Lead Them
A nine-year-old who had leukemia was given six months to live. When the doctor broke the news to her parents outside her hospital room, the youngster overheard the doctor’s words. But it did not become obvious until later that she knew about her condition. To everyone’s surprise, her faith in Christ gave her an attitude of victory. She talked freely about her death with anticipation in her voice. As she grew weaker, it seemed that her joy became more radiant. One day before she sank into a final coma, she said to her family, “I am going to be the first to see Jesus! What would you like me to tell Him for you?”
The Binding Cord
We free ourselves from the womb, but there is no knife sharp enough to cut the umbilical cord which binds us to our grave. –Paul Eldridge
A Great Run
As I sit in the study on a beautiful, cool August afternoon, I look back with many thanks. It has been a great run. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Much could and should have been better, and I have, by no means, done what I should have done with all that I have been given. But the overall experience of being alive has been a thrilling experience. I believe that death is a doorway to more of it: clearer, cleaner, better, with more of the secret opened than locked. I do not feel much confidence in myself as regards all this, for very few have ever “deserved” eternal life. But with Christ’s atonement and Him gone on before, I have neither doubt nor fear whether I am left here a brief time or a long one. I believe that I shall see Him and know Him, and that eternity will be an endless opportunity to consort with the great souls and the lesser ones who have entered into the freedom of the heavenly city. It is His forgiveness and grace that give confidence and not merits of our own. But again I say, it’s been a great run. I’m thankful for it and for all the people who have helped to make it so, and especially those closest and dearest to me. –Samuel Moor Shoemaker
Going through the Door
Once a dying patient asked his doctor, who had come to make a house call on him, what death would be like. The doctor fumbled for a reply and then he heard his dog scratching at the door of the man’s room. The answer came to him. The doctor looked at the patient and said, “Did you hear that noise? That is my dog which I brought with me tonight, and I left him downstairs before I came up to your room. He climbed those stairs because he knows that I am here. He has no other ideas about what is in this room for he has never been here. All he knows is that I am in here and that is good enough for him. You don’t know what is on the other side of the door of death, but you do know that your Master is there.”
That should be good enough for all of us. We will never walk through the door or through the valley of death alone. He will always be there to go with us through the door to the other side.
Near Death Experiences
The March 1985 issue of Omni magazine reported a study by Dr. Maurice Rawlings, cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Chattanooga. He and his emergency room colleagues are constantly treating such cases. It is now standard that those who have near death experiences later speak of having experiences of light, lush green meadows, rows of smiling relatives, and tremendous peace.
However, in his study, also reported in his book Beyond Death’s Door, Dr. Rawlings obtained new information by interviewing patients immediately after resuscitation while they are still too shaken to deny where they have been. Nearly 50 percent of the group of 300 interviewed reported lakes of fire and brimstone, devil-like figures and other sights hailing from the darkness of hell.
He says they later change their story because most people are simply ashamed to admit they have been to hell; they won’t even admit it to their families. Concludes Dr. Rawlings, “Just listening to these patients has changed my whole life. There’s a life after death, and if I don’t know where I’m going, it’s not safe to die.”
Going Home
A ninety-year-old woman, a priest’s mother, was taken to the hospital with a number of physical problems. Her son visited her and tried to cheer her up by saying, “Now, Mom, don’t worry—you are going to be home in a few days.” She replied brightly, “Oh, I know that. Just don’t know which home.” –Charles Krieg
Homecoming
Once there was an old man who everyday would take long walks with the Lord. On these walks, he and the Lord God would talk about all kinds of things—about the important times in the old man’s life; when he met his wife, the birth of his children, special Christmases, etc. One day while they were out walking for an especially long time, the Lord looked at the old man and said, “We are closer to My house than we are to yours. Why don’t you just come home with Me.” And that is what he did!