Sublimity To Death

The Apostle Paul, growing old and maintaining his views of realism and spiritual integrity, seemed eager toward the end of his life to use his personal, professional and spiritual insights to prepare his closest colleagues to take over his ministries, add their own increasing influence, and contribute to generations in advancing the gospel.  That included evangelism and the exposition of the victorious life in faith as outlined in Scripture.  It is observed in daily experience.  The above verse falls into the context of the preceding verses referring to the hope of Christ.  Hope in Scripture refers to immortality, and its certainty in the forerunning experience of Christ’s resurrection.  It is referred to in I Corinthians 13:13 as among the greatest gifts from God – love, faith and hope.  It is not wishing but a spiritual experience worthy of utter sublimity.  In discussion of hope, we go to issues of life and death.  Interpretation of death ought to include the understanding that immortality is a presently held gift for Christians – opened at mortal death.  Hope in the New Testament relates to experience of anticipation with pleasure, an expectation related to confidence, therefore an important part of faith in God. Immortality is a real and sublime experience – now. (Roman 4-5; 12:12; 15:13; 1 Corinthians 15:19; 2 Thessalonians 2:16; Titus 3:7; I Peter 1:3)

How do we put off this mortal coil – as Shakespeare casts the thought?  We have much background to work from.  Respected minds from the past have addressed the matter early and late in their experiences.  They have had helpful and disdainful thoughts about death, perhaps for days preceding it as well.  Like all else that mankind does, they have been helpful and they have been mythical.  They have helped and hindered us in our own perceptions and projections.  I believe we can settle with peace on the following.

Death, including any suffering or decrepitude that precedes it is considered an enemy, even by God.  God meets the attack of any enemy with a redemptive plan that is active in the person choosing it, and that before death.  It is a part of the plan that turns negatives away and makes death a transition from the mortal to the immortal.  That transition may be achieved quietly, even with a sense of sublimity (persons speak of unspeakable light, of music, of angels, of glory) but some speak of suffering, fear, darkness, falling, and nothingness.  We can’t be sure how we will pass, and the Christian will be evaluated, not on the end game but what he or she has been in the responsible years of life.  As we emerged in our infancy to awareness, knowledge and faith, so learned factors may fade before we die – perhaps in Alzheimer’s disease. We need to be reminded that God is fair, just and loving, even in the most negative situations of our lives.  He did not abandon Peter when Peter failed at the time of the crucifixion, or when Stephen died in a hail of stones, but observing Christ standing to receive him in surrounding glory.  Secularists seldom relate any perceived details of resurrection life.  The point to be made is that there is a victory for those who in death have chosen life through the giver of life with assured transition, no matter the mortal conditions of death.

Christians bring some closure for death in services of memorial for friends, family, or community but we may face the matter somewhat differently than commonly attends.  Death for the Christian is a transition, which is beyond human ability to describe in its sublimity.  Therefore, it isn’t to be observed in grief, but in lament.  We lament our loss to our present lives.  Why grieve only except to distort what is really the case?  We don’t want the deceased person to return to the imperfections of mortality, when the perfections of immortality are already incorporated.  Persons who feel they have died, or were in near-death experience (this last is my take on these statements) usually report that they did not wish to return and wake up back on earth.  By lament, rather than grief, we express to God and our fellow human beings that we have lost something that we wish we had not lost – for ourselves, not for them.  There is something subtracted from our lives that we would prefer to retain.  That is not grief, but lament.  Loss is not but ours.  The benefit is that we find life changed a bit, and we rise to the occasion to provide something that makes up for that which was taken from us.  I have noted gentle and loving persons who married again after the death of a mate deeply loved.  They want to recreate the lost thing they treasured.