What is the most crucial and least talked about subject for Christians today? ... Death! Maybe you aren’t inclined to contemplate it personally, however Death is on everyone’s mind at some point. Surely we have all paused to reflect on the bible verse: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you will return” – a warning so powerful it claps like rolling thunder. Caught up in the vortex of our frantic society, we make plans for every occasion, yet ignore death, because we know the same fate awaits us, that took billions of people before us. Are you rich, or are you poor? Are you famous, or are you just-another-guy? Are you powerful, or swept away by circumstances? It doesn’t matter. At your funeral the guests will say wonderful things about your kindness, your passion, your talent, but – let’s face it – after a few months their memories will fade. After a few years you will be just an illusion, like those vague, warm summer days of childhood, which seem to belong to somebody else.
Until a few decades ago Death was all around people, even in times of peace. Until recently children would come across dead animals in farms, but today pets usually go by euthanasia. In the past, travelers suffered when their horses died and farmers their cattle, but today these natural experiences are removed from us. Instead, ambulances whisk away the dying in minutes, for grieving families to reencounter the deceased looking more radiant in their casket, than they often did alive. Ask kids at school who has seen a corpse and the number can easily be counted on one hand. What are we doing? We think we are protecting the living from the dead, but this distorts perception – because there is no surprise in Death. Who can honestly say: “Oh, I didn’t know that was coming!” What is really surprising is how little people reflect on Death’s meaning and to what extent society goes to bury its head in the sand of denial. Is closing our eyes the best way to drive the car of our precious existence? The hard truth is: we will all finally close our eyes to a symphony of blinding lights, so what should we make of our lives? Like for the captain of a ship, a keen awareness of our mortality helps us stir a better course. A great spiritual exercise is imaging oneself at Death’s door, our family at our side, our achievements on the wall … minutes to go … and a last chance to ask: “What was the meaning of my life?” In a peculiar way, isn’t falling asleep every night a ‘trial-run’ at dying? Like restaurants have soft-openings and theaters dress-rehearsals, each night’s slumber should deepen our love for God by eroding our fear of Death, so at its threshold we wont be making up excuses. We are like the fig tree in the Gospel: either we produce results in the time allocated, or the gardener will cut us down to make space for more fruitful trees. Maybe the only thing we should remember is that: Death will always be on time!
