A Pepper Grinder Post

To Die is …

Many of us are familiar with Paul's quote, For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philipians 1:21, NIV) My question today is not whether we believe that in a theoretical way, but whether we live like we believe it.

This question has been brought to the forefront by the coronavirus scare. On the one hand it is a scary disease in its ability to spread rapidly, to have many different symptoms, and to have quite nasty symptoms in some cases. On the other hand, when we look at it dispassionately, we have to admit that the fatality rate pales in comparison to things like the black death (which killed 30-60% of Europe's population), smallpox (which killed about 30% of the people who caught it), or even the Spanish influenza (which had a fatality rate of around 2.5%). My youngest son read something that pointed this out in a satirical fashion, saying something along the lines of, "When the dust clears, there's only going to be 98% of us left!" It's very easy to focus on the tragic cases, and I am certain that the tragic cases truly are tragic, but the fact remains that many people will not catch this virus, and many people who do catch it will not have any serious symptoms.

However, I'm really not trying to weigh in on the question of whether or not Covid-19 is a scary virus. My real question is what our attitude, as Christians, should be to this virus and to death in general.

It often feels to me that our culture in general, with our increased technological prowess at delaying death, have lost our ability to face it. I have read that wounded soldiers in the Civil War hospital tents would ask if they had been shot in the gut. They knew that an injury in that part of the body, as opposed to a limb, meant almost certain death. Upon hearing that he had been "gut shot," a wounded soldier, I have heard, would fold his arms across his chest, because he knew this would make it easier to deal with his corpse once rigor mortis set in.

From that same era, I think of a scene portrayed in the movie Gods and Generals, based on the Jeff Shaara book by that name. When the wife of Stonewall Jackson hears from the doctor attending Jackson that he will die that day, her question is not, "Are there other treatments we can try?" or "Can we get a second opinion?" Instead she asks, "Does he know?" Upon hearing that he has not yet been told that he is about to die, she determines to tell him immediately, so that he can prepare his soul for death.

I contrast this with a doctor who was treating one of my sisters-in-law who was battling the cancer which eventually took her life. He seemed reasonably helpful and responsive until the time when tests revealed that the cancer had mestastasized and spread to many places in her body. After that, he completely stopped communicating with my sister-in-law's family, despite repeated phone calls requesting information. I don't know the man or his motivations, but my theory is that he was so wrapped up in fighting death, that he could not accept defeat.

And yet, we all die. I remember the windy night that I was wheeling our trash receptacle down the driveway. Suddenly I heard a crash behind me. I whirled around to discover that a large branch, weighing 30 pounds or so, had fallen from a high tree and landed just six feet behind me. It was immensely clear to me that if God had wanted to, he could very easily have caused that branch to fall a couple seconds earlier.

Could you catch Covid-19 and die from it? Absolutely. Could you be killed by a drunk driver on a short trip to the grocery store? Definitely. Unless God has decided that you are to be someone present on the earth when he returns, I can guarantee you that he has planned your death. Maybe he plans to have you live to an old age, but is that really the ideal? Think of the early church fathers. A few may have lived long enough to die of natural causes, but many did not.

This may sound like I am preaching a kind of fatalism. We're all gonna go, so why fight it? Why should we watch what we eat, or wear seatbelts, or wear a mask in public during a pandemic? That, however, feels like too much of a fatalistic attitude. Our life is a miraculous gift from God. We shouldn't just be careless. On the other hand, I think it's easy to get caught up in the fear I think I see in many of the eyes above the masks at Walmart. It's no surprise that an atheist or agnostic would have this fear. If you believe that everything you are will simply cease to be when your brain stops functioning, why wouldn't you be scared?

But what about a Christian? Going back to the quote at the start of this piece, what does it mean to say that to live is Christ, and to die is gain? If we are to go on living, it gives us more chances to live for and serve Jesus. But what about death? Death is gain. This is the same word used by Paul in Titus 1:11 where he speaks of false teachers in the church preaching heresy for the sake of dishonest gain,. Another translation of this word would be profit. In other words, if we die, we'll come out ahead, and looking at the teaching on the afterlife presented elsewhere in the Bible, it's clear we'll come out way ahead. Just a little later in this same chapter, Paul says that to die is better by far (Philipians 1:23, NIV) than remaining in the body.

Do we believe that?

Go ahead and take precautions, but don't do it out of a crippling fear. We are in a win-win situation. It's like the game show Let's Make a Deal (which I am embarrassed to admit I watched for many hours during my childhood). At one point in the show, the contestant was given the choice of trading what he had won so far for the unseen prize behind one of three doors. Usually there was a fantastic prize behind one door, something pretty good behind another, and some kind of disappointing joke prize behind the remaining door. Imagine that the disappointing door was removed. Now we have the choice of two doors. One will allow us to go on living for Christ and seeing him use us (though it's clear that there will be hardships on this path). The other door opens to an existence vastly better than anything we have ever experienced. We need have no fear that God will choose something bad for us. It's all good.

- Pepper
Posted 2020-05-28