“For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.” – Ecclesiastes 3
Why do we have such a hard time with this? Why do we deny that death is part of the journey? We somehow expect that we and our loved ones will be the first to escape death. But it is not so.
For as long as humans have walked the earth, this has been true: “For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die.”
Now I do not believe that the time of our death is predetermined by God. The lifestyle we choose makes a difference in our life expectancy. If we choose to live in a healthy manner, we increase the odds of long life. However, all we can really do is to increase our odds, for some things are out of our control—truth be told, most things are out of our control.
We may do everything right, like our friend Tim Keil, and be hit by an impaired driver. We may have a genetic make-up that makes us vulnerable to disease. A tree could fall on us. We could choke on a piece of food. We are frail flesh, and we are not getting out of this world alive!
So do we agree so far?
I had two brothers in my office this week. Their father, who is 87 years old, was in critical care on the mainland. The doctors said that it was doubtful that he would ever come to and he certainly would never live outside of a care facility again.
The question they had for me was a moral, ethical, and religious question. Could they remove life support as the health care professionals advised? Would they be playing God? Would they be ruling out a miracle? Could they, in good conscience, remove life support from the man who taught them to chew with their mouth closed, to treat women with respect, and how to hit a golf ball?
I will tell you what I told them. There is a time to be born and a time to die. That is the way of creation—that is the way that almighty God has set this up. Now, thanks to modern medicine, we are able to play God. We mistakenly keep people alive at all costs. It is understandable. Who wants to lose their loved one, even if they are old and their quality of life is greatly diminished? Christians do not worship life. We worship only God. We need to learn to trust God in death, just as we trust God in life.
What we do to our loved ones at the end of life is often not loving at all. Because we cannot bear to let go, we put our loved ones into an institutional purgatory. We check them into the “Hotel California” when they could have been enjoying a heavenly reunion. When will we accept the age-old truth—there is a time to be born and a time to die. When will we learn to let go? There comes a time when death is not the enemy—it is the final chapter of a life well lived. Death is the gate to eternal life.
I told the boys to listen to the choir—the voices of health professionals, the testimony of the Bible, the words of their pastor, and a health directive from their father. The choir was singing the same tune, “don’t fear death, trust the author of life, have faith, and let your father go.” On the cross Jesus said, “into your hands I commend my Spirit.” Don’t you see, at that point in his suffering, death was not the enemy. It was a merciful relief.
This Sunday I will continue the preaching series on Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. It would take you 10 minutes to read the entire letter and would be time well spent.
My love to you!
