We don’t like to think about death. However, not only should we, but it is healthy that we should. It all depends on how we think about death. Do we shake our fist at God when dying? Or do we see death as the threshold to glory? Here are two utterly contrasting views of death before our eyes. An example of the first: Mark Twain, became morose and weary of life. Shortly before his death, he wrote, “A myriad of men are born; they labor and sweat and struggle;…they squabble and scold and fight; they scramble for little mean advantages over each other; age creeps upon them; infirmities follow; …those they love are taken from them, and the joy of life is turned to aching grief. It (the release) comes at last–the only unpoisoned gift earth ever had for them–and they vanish from a world where they were of no consequence,…a world which will lament them a day and forget them forever.”
An example of the second: the dying words of Edward Payson: “The celestial city is full in my view. Its glories beam upon me, its breezes fan me, its odours are wafted to me, its sounds strike upon my ears, and its spirit is breathed into my heart. Nothing separates me from it but the river of death, which now appears but as an insignificant rill, that may be crossed at a single step, whenever God shall give permission. The Sun of Righteousness has been gradually drawing nearer and nearer, appearing larger and brighter as he approached, and now he fills the whole hemisphere; pouring forth a flood of glory, in which I seem to float like an insect in the beams of the sun; exulting, yet almost trembling, while I gaze on this excessive brightness, and wondering, with unutterable wonder, why god should deign thus to shine upon a sinful worm.”
Fr. Bill said,
November 23, 2006 at 10:53 am
Lane,
I appreciate the point you make here, at least this idea which seems to be the main one: that death for Christians, and the moment when death arrives, is in principle very different from the same moment for unbelievers. And, while I’ll concede that this next point is probably not what you were aiming at, I’d point out that it’s an idea that a casual reader might see: that the experience of dying is, ipso facto, very different for believer and unbeliever.
It’s this latter point which simple observation alone dispells. And if you’ve not seen this yet, you eventually will see it if you remain in pastoral ministry very much longer. Having attended the moment of death for two family members (both in the Lord), I assure you that the “passing” can be quite harrowing, as much so as some of the martyrs’ death, whose passing was attended by turmoil, pain, and all the anxieties that attend such trials. we may rightly envy Edward Payson’s rhetorically polished last words (though their polish makes one wonder if they’re not… well, embellished somewhat in transmission). But I doubt his last words, taken at face value, represent anything typical as far as the experience of death is concerned. I’m not familiar with his last words or his situation as he delivered them. Were these supposed to be his at or very near the moment of death? Or, perhaps, his thoughts as he contemplated death’s inevitability in the near future?
Whether Payson’s words are anything typical, I doubt. Believer and unbeliever alike experience death in myriad ways — suddenly (guhshot, auto accident, electrocution in the bathroom); lingeringly (illness of lengthy duration); quietly in sleep; tumultuously in trama, whether natural or deliberate. I would find it incredible that Payson’s stately, measured words (or anything resembling them) would be in the mind of a believer as he plummets toward the earth after being ejected from an airplane moments earlier exploded out of the sky by a terrorist’s bomb!
What Payson affords us is one of those not uncommon instances when a believer seems to possess most of his faculties of apprehension as his body is giving up his ghost. Read the caregiver’s manuals of hospice agencies and you’ll find that they report this kind of phenomenon as something to be expected — seeing Jesus, or scenes such as Payson recounts, or deceased family and/or friends. Privately, hospice workers will report very different experiences as well, as if the dying person beholds the Pit yawning before him.
But, for all this, believers and unbelievers can also die quite at peace as far as we can see from this side of the divide. Or, they can die amidst distresses I don’t enjoy contemplating (being torn to shreds by lions, for example).
Again, you were probably not talking about the experience of death itself, but if that notion came quickly to mind for me, I imagine it would for others as well.
Fr. B
greenbaggins said,
November 26, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Fr. Bill, your cautions and guards are well-taken. I would wish to avoid the impression that Christian deaths, if not as easy as Payson’s are somehow riddled with doubts, and that therefore the Christian should doubt his salvation because of it. I am an idealist. Since I have also done 9 funerals in two years, I am also (getting to be) a realist. Pain can and often is present in a Christian’s death. However, there is also a peace when the physical pain is not huge that is delightful to me to see. So, what I hoped to portray is that this kind of death is something for which we should strive. As I heard once, “The best ministry an old Christian can give to the world is to show the world how a Christian should die.”
Fr. Bill said,
November 28, 2006 at 1:36 am
“So, what I hoped to portray is that this kind of death is something for which we should strive.”
And, I would add, it is something for which to pray, both for ourselves, and for those whom we love.
I suppose it would sound morbid to many to think of praying about the deaths of others before they happened. But, why not?
Our family is, I think, a tad unusual here. Both grandmothers have predeceased the grandfathers, and both exited this world fairly traumatically. I think both were in the Lord, though the only tangible evidence I have of that at the time of Mom’s passing was her obvious preoccupation with “stuff” that seemed to be in the room for several hours before she died, coupled with her laughter at one point about an hour before she stopped breathing. Fortunately, I have better testimonial evidence from the time when her life was far more peaceable.
But, still, with both Grandmas exiting under harrowing medical trauma, it turned my thoughts to persistent prayer that the Lord would not call on their husbands to retrace those same steps. That prayer was answered for my father-in-law; I’m still praying that my Dad’s passing will be peaceful.
The opening line of Compline is this: “The LORD grant us a peaceful night, and a perfect end.” I think it’s just about my favorite prayer in all the canonical hours of prayer, for it deliberately juxtaposes falling asleep in this world and falling asleep in the Lord. It is the ancient bed-time prayers of the Church, but it never fails to mention that final falling asleep from which there is no awakening until the Trumpet.
greenbaggins said,
November 28, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Thanks for your words of wisdom, Fr. Bill.