Christian Reflections on Death
St Mildred’s, 29th April, 2007.

Today we are thinking about death and what difference our Christian faith makes to how we approach our own death and the death of those we love. Death is not a topic we can approach in a detached way and I realise it will touch raw nerves for many of us. Death is a hard subject to talk about, and generally avoided in our culture, but if we can’t talk about it in church, then where else? I am aware that some people may feel very emotional this morning, but again, I do hope that church is a place where we can be real and honest and feel able to shed tears if need be.

Let us acknowledge at the beginning that amongst us there will be different experiences of death and bereavement. I know that some people have very recently lost those they love; others have lived with the long term illness of those close to them and know their death may be near. Some of us here are elderly or face long term illness ourselves and know our time on this earth may be short. Others among us may be young and healthy and not have given death much thought. But death is a reality we all need to prepare for and hopefully we can do so with Christian hope and faith.

A monk who was the headteacher of a Catholic boys school was once asked what the school prepared its pupils for and he apparently answered ‘death’ A very stark and probably very surprising reply to our ears! I think what he meant to convey in his reply was that, although the boys might live another 60,70 even 80 years, helping them to think about the reality of death was in fact the best preparation he could offer them for a full, rich and holy life. How we think about death and how we think about life are related, and I’ll come back to that later.

So what is the Christian view of death? In fact there can be rather different views: Paul described death as ‘the last enemy’ while Francis of Assisi talked of ‘brother death’ If we are faced with the death of a very elderly relative after much suffering, their death may come as a release and may indeed seem like ‘brother death’ On the other hand, when a young person dies (and I took the funeral of a tiny baby a couple of days ago) death may seem more like the ‘last enemy’.

Did God originally create human being to be immortal? There is a strand in the Bible that would answer yes, and death came only as a result of sin and rebellion against God. But our only experience now is that we are finite creatures, just like animals, for whom death is a natural part of this earthly life. Yet, we still as human beings, cry out against death. We cry out against the pain, the loss and separation, the meaninglessness, the end of relationship that death seems to bring and think surely there must be more to life than this?

The Christian answer is that, yes, there is more to life than this. Death is not the end. Not because we are naturally immortal and our immortal soul floats off for ever when we die but because God, who gave us life in the first place, gives us a new resurrected life in Christ. Believing in the resurrection, though, doesn’t mean that we can kid ourselves that death doesn’t really happen and we don’t need to take it too seriously. Like the curious passage sometimes read at funerals which talks of the departed having just slipped into the next room. In the words of the Archbishop, Rowan Wiliams ‘death really is a descent into dark and nothingness. Death really is an ending, and resurrection matters, because God has begun again.’

Resurrection is a new beginning; a new created life that doesn’t belong to us naturally, but which God gives us. And our faith in the resurrection is based on Christ’s own resurrection from the dead. What exactly happens when we die, of course, no one can say for sure. But the teaching of the New Testament is that when a person dies they are ‘with the Lord’ and held in his love. But at the end of time they, with us all, will be resurrected with a new spiritual body. Everything will be made new; there will be a new heavens and a new earth. Although our spiritual bodies will be different from our present earthly bodies, there will be a real sense of continuity between this life and the life to come. We will still be the same person only transformed and perfected. So you will still be you and I will still be me, only more so; fulfilling all our potential, without our flaws. (This is very different from Eastern views of an afterlife in which there are no separate identities, but all life forms one cosmic consciousness; where everyone blends together into one ocean of being)

So what difference does the Christian faith make to us when we approach our own death or the death of those we love? Certainly it made a big difference to the early Christian martyrs like Polycarp who faced their brutal deaths with courage and even joy. This may seem alien to us today. But I can think of people I’ve known myself, and hopefully you can too, whose faith made a huge difference to the way they approached death.

A few years ago a friend of ours, a young woman not yet 40, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given only 3 months to live. She was married with 4 young children. The way that she and her husband faced what was going to happen, talked to their children about it and prepared for it together was truly inspiring. They didn’t pretend she would get better, but faced the future together honestly, bravely and with faith. Together they were able to trust one another to God. Those 3 months (and they did turn out to be 3 months) were used to say goodbye to friends, to sort out unfinished business and prepare the children for how they would cope without her. I was so moved and inspired by their example that I prayed if ever I was in a similar situation I would respond similarly.

Their faith did not mean they didn’t grieve and agonise over the loss and separation that was to come. But they did ‘not grieve as those without hope’ (a phrase which Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians). Their faith was not based primarily on a detailed programme of exactly what would happen after death but on a person. In the end our confidence and trust is in God as revealed to us in Christ. If we know God and trust him with our life, we can also trust him with our death.

One of the images most used for God in the Bible is that of the shepherd. In the Old Testament, God is described as a shepherd who seeks out the lost, bandages up the injured, leads his sheep to new pastures and carries the lambs in his arms. In the New Testament, Jesus takes up this image for himself, calling himself the Good Shepherd, who knows all his sheep by name. In our Gospel reading, he says ‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish...no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.’ He is the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. As we heard in our reading from Revelation the shepherd on the throne is the Lamb who died and rose again. Jesus, the Good Shepherd leads us through death to eternal life because he himself has been that way before us.

Most of us will know well the 23rd Psalm, the Lord is My Shepherd, which is often read at funerals. It speaks of God leading us through life and also through death. ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and staff – they comfort me.’ The ‘valley of the shadow of death’: what a powerful image for those living with terminal illness. What a powerful image too for the darkness and pain of bereavement.

I remember when my father died, feeling as if I was in a tunnel rather than a valley. I went about my life and work, but felt somehow cut off; that I was relating to people and things about me at a distance as if through a tunnel. But I also knew that God was in the tunnel with me.

I said at the beginning of this sermon that thinking about death and thinking about life are related. This is obvious when we spend time with someone we love who is dying. In the words of Metropolitan Anthony: ‘only death can make things that seem to be so small, so insignificant, into signs that are great and significant: the way a cup of tea is prepared on a tray, the way one puts cushions behind the back of a sick person, the way your voice sounds, the way you move – all that can be an expression of all the fullness of a relationship.’ But more generally, thinking about death can help us live life at all times with more awareness; more awareness of what is most important; more awareness of the significance of simple love and care for one another. The early Christian fathers used to pray ‘give us a remembrance of death’ that they might live life more fully and with greater trust and faith in God.

I pray that all of us might live with a deeper trust and confidence in God and his love in Christ. If we can learn to live with that trust and confidence now, that will strengthen us as we approach death. The Good Shepherd calls us to follow him and to trust him with our life and our death. Jesus says ‘My sheep hear my voice. I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish…no one (and nothing, not even death) can snatch them out of the Father’s hand.’