Where, O Death, is thy Sting?

We’re all going to die. This gets covered in detail on Ash Wednesday, and we The Church tend to think about it more than usual throughout the season of Lent, so I thought it an appropriate subject for today. Death is the inevitable result of life, and eventually it claims us all. But that’s not the real tragedy. What’s sad to me is that so many people fear dying, rather than look forward to it at least a little.

And I get it. Nobody knows for sure what happens when we die. Every religion (and lack thereof) is a faith, after all, not a set of certain, verifiable knowledge. There’s something undeniably scary about that. Death is unfamiliar and unknowable, and all too often death comes too soon, too preventably, and so senselessly that we are right to lament it.

I also don’t mean to suggest that I can’t wait to die. I love life. I will never have enough time with my wife, and there are dozens of things I hope to accomplish yet in this world. That’s why I’m putting myself through just about every kind of cancer treatment ever invented and trying experimental therapies still in testing in an attempt to buy just a bit more time. So it’s utterly and thoroughly untrue that I want to die, and the sooner the better.

Yet dying means an end to suffering. For me, it will bring relief from the grueling slog of cancer treatments I’ve endured for over three years. So it’ll be fine, though much more for me than for those I leave behind. Others will be heartbroken or at least a little sad. I’ll simply be at peace. I thought I was dying a few months ago when I triggered a Code Blue during an immunotherapy infusion, and my only thought in that moment was “they should probably just let me go at this point, rather than continue working to keep me around.” Not in so many words, perhaps, but that was the gist of it. I’m glad that was my reaction. I’m glad I’ve made my peace with the inevitable, should it come tomorrow or in twenty years.

Too often, Christians are absurdly fearful of death. It makes about as much sense to me as those who simultaneously fear “signs of the End Times” while hoping for a sudden deliverance from this world and all its troubles. Those of us who believe an eternal life with God awaits us after death should look forward to that. Sure, saying ‘see you later’ to those who go before us—or those we leave behind when we go ourselves—isn’t exactly fun. But they’re only temporary partings, and life eternal that’s free from sin and suffering sounds pretty great.