Dear Friends,
Growing up in Pembrokeshire, it was often said that funerals come three in a row. That was exactly correct for us a few weeks ago. On the Wednesday we attended the funeral of a missionary colleague from UFM. Thursday, we as a church said goodbye to our sister Joan Jackson and on the Friday friends gathered in Pembrokeshire to pay their respects to a man who had always been a great encouragement to us in ministry. It was an exhausting week.
Why was it so tiring, since the one thing in life of which we can all be certain is that the day is coming when we each will keep our appointment with death? The answer is that death is an intrusion into human experience. When God created the world, he told Adam, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Gen 2:16-17) God had made an abundant provision for human need, but he set one limit. When that limit was crossed or ignored the consequences were immediate. Physical death did not happen immediately, but spiritual death did. Adam and Eve had been able to interact with God in a fearless way prior to their disobedience, but as soon as they disobeyed God’s one safeguard, we read that “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” (Gen. 3:7) Without any conscious awareness of God they knew shame, but as soon as God made His presence known “the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” When asked the reason why he hid, Adam said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” (Gen 3:7-10). The first experience of death brought shame and as a consequence, strain. Strain always tires us.
In effect that was a moral strain, but the experience of our Lord in John 11:35 shows that “Jesus wept”. That was an emotional or relational strain. Jesus was a true human being, with all the emotions that God has given human beings. We become emotionally tired when we face the strain of bereavement.
I took a break in writing this article and joined the team at the open air service. While I was preaching a woman entered into an aggressive argument with me; she was angry with God following what she saw as the untimely death of a friend and relatives. We sympathise with such a person, because a series of deaths is a huge burden to carry, but none of us is able to predict or determine the time of our death. Since death is an intrusion into God’s design for humanity it will always be untimely, but essentially it can be prepared for.
Hebrews 9:27 makes it clear that “it is appointed for man to die once.” For us death is an uncertainty, except in cases of murder, suicide or euthanasia, but Scripture makes it quite clear that death is an appointment that has been agreed by the giver of life. We are brought back to the fact that life is not a series of random events, nor is it a cold demonstration of some power called fate, it is a process that is being worked out by the Saviour of the world.
As Christians we prepare for death by putting our trust in God daily, that He will give us the strength and the grace to cope with whatever that day brings, even if it is death. Even as Christians death still brings strain, because we have a break in relationships. If you are not a Christian the strain of death is doubly difficult, because you do not have the help of our God. It is vital that you prepare for your own death, putting your faith in Christ who has conquered death. In the same way, by trusting God you can cope with the intrusive death of others with the help of God the Holy Spirit.
Death is a sad reality in our world, but the author of life gives all the grace that we need to face it. May each of you know that grace.
Because of His Grace,
Bernard Lewis
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