thoughts out !oud

a Christian’s news, views, opinions and occasional poetry …

How to get your fear of death to drop dead

Posted by Mathew | 5 August 08

I wonder how many of us fear death? If even only on a subconscious level, perhaps? I think it would be fair to say that the majority of people really don’t give much time thinking about death. I mean, why dwell on something that is so morbid and dark, right? Wouldn’t we rather just think of the happier things in life and tend to what is present than to waste our grey matter thinking of death?

Since you’re reading this, do you? Are you scared of death? Or are you somewhat like me … not really fearing death itself but not looking forward to how it might actually take place?

At one point, I used to think that Christians had the monopoly of not fearing death. It stood to reason: Christ conquered death so that we might have life and have it in abundance.

But really, this is a silly notion. Way before Jesus walked the earth, the pagan religions already taught a cycle of life and death and regeneration - to them, death was just an important, unavoidable and necessary step for the progression of life. Today, it would seem those with strong secular philosophies also do not fear death - they take it in their stride, in a manner of speaking. But the biggest thing that these such philosophies really lose out on and cannot grasp or have an answer for is the suffering of others following the death of a loved one or the witnessing of the traumatic death of another.

For all the Hitchens’s, Dawkins’s and the Dennett’s, secular philosophy (or pagan religion) has nothing of substance to offer the grieving. In fact, all the materialistic philosophies of these three and others like them can provide you is a big ’sorry, but that’s life. There’s no real purpose. You live one moment and then you stop, that’s all that there is to it’. In the face of grief, then, materialistic philosophy has nothing to give. Indifference is no comfort to the grieved.

From one aspect, if you are a nihilist (and a nihilist, by the way, only believes what he believes as a means to an end … ) or simply believe all consciousness ceases to exist once we expire, what is there really to be fearful of? There’s no immortal soul as far as this view is concerned. Once you’re dead you’re … dead. You might fear how you die or might try in vain to prevent the unpreventable, but once the event has happened, that’s it. You’re pushing up daisies, so to speak.

Yet in Christianity we find a somewhat interesting, contrast: life continues after death as we have an immortal, conscious soul that will exist either in Heaven or in Hell. So shouldn’t we be scared that we might end up in the latter and not the former? For those of you brought up as God-fearing Christians - in the literal, bible-thumping sense - chances are you are one of these people who have moved away from Christianity because you see that it uses the fear of Hell to force you to submit. Jesus spoke a bit about Hell - more than any other topic, in fact - so you think this is a fair assumption to make.

I can’t vouch for that. That’s not my experience, being taught to fear being cast into Hell. (This tactic seems more at home with Islam, not Christianity, where a Muslim has no guarantee that he’ll end up in heaven or hell - it’s purely at Allah’s discretion and it’s impossible to know what Allah is thinking.) From my viewpoint, while the Christian knows through scripture that there are two eternal destinations and that every individual is bound for one of them when they die, the Christian is happy. There is nothing at all to fear. We are told, as Christians, not to fear. When the women went back to Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion, they were told these most amazing words by the angel:

“Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.” (Matt 28:5-6)

Jesus has conquered sin and death with his outstretched arms. He is there is receive us warmly when we die and move onto the glory that is Heaven. And this is precisely how we, as Christians, learn not to fear death - there is something so much greater than we can possibly imagine that awaits us in our Father’s house.

How could you be fearful with such a great promise and hope found in the Good News of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection? Where, O Death, is your sting?

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-58)

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