Lessons from Death

Fred Smith allows us to share very personal insights on death and belief.

By Fred Smith

A young adult was being wheeled down the hospital corridor toward the operating room. Few of his friends and family thought he would return alive. He knew the prognosis and as they neared the door he turned to a friend and said, "What I have believed I now know." In facing death he had the confidence that faith wasn't conjecture, but truth.

While preparing myself for the memorial service of a good friend's son I looked at my two alternatives: be an observer or be a participant. I could possibly be a mixture of both but then I would never really be either. As I thought through my choice I decided that there are three types of observers.
 
 1) the curious onlooker who is solely satisfying his personal curiosity about a morbid subject — death;
 
 2) the social observer who is meeting the expectations of friends and family. This observer is often there in body, but not in spirit;
 
 3) the objective reporter/observer who analyzes and gives unemotional support. An observer of any type steels himself to the reality of death as a personal affair. I chose, really without option, to participate. As a participant I cannot steel my emotions but must accept my individual vulnerability. This young man's death was part of me—the bells were truly tolling for me, as well. It was for me to accept each pain and consequently deal with the total agony. I hurt when my friends hurt. I was part of the human condition and participated rather than observed.

When faced with death I am touched by the family's grief. I weep with the friends who weep. There is a small group of those well-meaning escapists who pronounce death a time for celebration. They move unevenly through grief by denying and ignoring the personal and human loss. While I respect their right to define their process I do not participate with them. At the time of death I must grieve for day comes only after the night. I know "we grieve not as those who have no hope" but we do grieve as those who have hope but now hurt.

A further step in preparing for the memorial service was taking the time to think about the lessons of dying. I jotted ten "I believe" statements down forming a catechism taught by death. Let me share them with you. This is not a theological treatise, but a framework for my own contemplation.

1. I believe in eternity. My friend's son is somewhere. He has not simply ceased to exist. My father, mother, sister and brothers are in a place we call eternity. And where they are, they are free from death. The last enemy has been conquered for them.

2. I believe in justification through faith in Christ. I know of no one who has lived so purely in this time-frame as to merit eternal life. Such a bargain would be too one-sided to be divine. It is a gift.

3. I believe death is our enemy. It can deeply hurt us but it can not destroy us.

4. I believe in the Comforter for I have received, now and in the past, comfort and the peace that passes understanding. Furthermore, I have the testimony of truthful friends who have also been recipients of this comfort and peace. I feel order even in this chaos.

5. I believe in the healing power of tears. Tears wash clean like a spiritual detergent. If Christ cried at death, so may I.

6. I believe good can come from hurt - even a hurt this deep. Death can be turned to life by the power of God.

7. I know this night will eventually end - I know it by faith in his promise and by past experience.

8. I believe the dead in Christ will be reunited - otherwise I see no sense to life and if it is not so "we are of all men most miserable. "

9. I believe this life is the practice and the true game comes in eternity-some just leave the practice field earlier than others.

10. I believe death comes by process——sometimes our smallest decisions have the greatest impact. (Editorial note: this young man drowned while crossing a river).

The hope of heaven is that we will know even as we have been known. We will see through a clear glass without the dim haze of our earthly eyes. We will be home and at home, in spirit and in truth. The enemy will be defeated and death will be put under for eternity.