CHAPTER 6: HOPE AFTER LOSS
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil; for You are with me.
In the mid 1970s, high-tech workers in Los Angeles began constructing a new generation of spaceships. The first to be launched was the space shuttle Columbia, the flagship of NASA’s new fleet.
Columbia blasted off April 12, 1981, and orbited the earth thirty-six times. Twenty-seven missions followed, but Columbia’s final trip was a flight to tragedy. While reentering earth’s atmosphere at nine o’clock (EST) on the morning of February 1, 2003, the shuttle broke apart. A piece of insulating foam the size of a small briefcase had peeled off during launch sixteen days earlier and punctured one of the vessel’s wings. The intense heat of reentry caused gases to penetrate the wing, triggering the catastrophe that killed the seven astronauts. Debris fell across large parts of Texas and Louisiana as thousands of people gazed upward in horror.
Several years later, a poignant report emerged about the destruction of Columbia. While the mission was in progress, NASA specialists studying the punctured wing questioned whether the damage was fatal. Wayne Hale, the space shuttle program manager, recalls these words of flight director Jon Harpold: “You know, there is nothing we can do about damage to the TPS [thermal protection system]. If it has been damaged it’s probably better not to know. I think the crew would rather not know. Don’t you think it would be better for them to have a happy successful flight and die unexpectedly during entry than to stay on orbit, knowing there was nothing to be done, until the air ran out?”[1]
Harpold’s question was a speculative one —should the crew be told if it was determined that the damage meant doom. Further analysis, however, led mission control to conclude that Columbia’s reentry would be safe. The crew was given a full report of NASA’s conclusion, and no one on the ship or on the ground had any expectation that the damage would prove fatal.
So neither NASA nor the Columbia crew ever knew the situation was hopeless before their spacecraft broke apart 207,000 feet above Texas. Evidence shows that even in the final moments of the flight, the crew was still desperately trying to regain control of the ship and safely reenter the atmosphere.
But the hypothetical question raised by Jon Harpold remains a haunting one. What would you do if you knew the crew was doomed? Would you tell them, causing indescribable mental anguish but giving them time to say their good-byes, reflect on life, and perhaps make peace with God? Or would you remain silent, making their final hours a time of exhilaration and anticipation of reunion with their loved ones?[2]
In a way, the plight of Columbia resembles our own: we’re flying through space on a spinning planet, and every person is subject to sudden death at any moment. None of us will escape. The difference is, we all know we are going to die, and we have the opportunity to prepare!
Our Attitudes toward Death
Death. Your favorite subject? It’s not mine, either. I’m not trying to cloud up your day, but I want to point out that for many people, death is the ultimate fear and the ultimate confusion. When someone dies, I hear a lot of people saying, “He’s in a better place,” even though before the death they tried with all their might to pray him away from that place.
Woody Allen once said, “It’s not that I’m afraid of dying, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”[3] Apparently he has given the matter some thought, because this comment is also attributed to him: “I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I would rather live on in my apartment.”
We treat death as the ultimate obscene word. Rather than simply saying, “He died,” we plug in an endless supply of euphemisms: “Passed on.” “Went to a better place.” “Was called home.” “Went to sleep.” “Departed this life.” Or if Shakespeare is your thing, “shuffled off this mortal coil.” The poet John Betjeman wanted to know, “Why do people waste their breath inventing dainty names for death?”[4]
In his book The Hour of Our Death, historian Philippe Ariès notes that death used to be taken more casually as a part of life. Young people weren’t shielded from it. Folks died at home, and the body was put on display there. People came by to weep and mourn their loss, but no one pretended a death hadn’t occurred, as we often do today when we gather in little groups in the parking lot after funerals and nervously tell jokes.[5]
Because of our discomfort, we airbrush the whole experience. We pretend people aren’t going to die, and we change the subject when they wish to discuss it. Then we dispatch them from this life in white, sterilized hospital corridors, cutting them off from home and the familiar. Most of us go to great lengths to avert our eyes from the reality of death.
Joseph Bayly says that death is the great leveler of the mighty and the lowly. It plays no favorites and cuts no deals:
Dairy farmer and sales executive live in death’s shadow, with Nobel Prize winner and prostitute, mother, infant, teen, old man. The hearse stands waiting for the surgeon who transplants a heart as well as the hopeful recipient, for the funeral director as well as the corpse he manipulates. Death spares none.[6]
Right about now, you may be thinking about skipping to the next chapter, hoping it will address a more “manageable” fear. I feel your trepidation, my friend, but just hear me out. What if I promised you that we could forever change the way you look at death —perhaps move it out of the fear category entirely? Isn’t it taking up too much space in your anxiety closet? It’s the idea of facing the unknown that frightens people. So let’s take on this subject and, with the Bible as our guide, pull death out of the terrifying darkness once and for all.
The Fact of Death
The Bible isn’t afraid to speak of death: it calls it what it is. Words such as die and death occur nearly nine hundred times in the New King James Version of the Bible. The biblical terms for death are often graceful and poetic: “gathered to my people” (Genesis 49:29); “gather[ed] . . . to your fathers, . . . gathered to your grave in peace” (2 Kings 22:20). Who isn’t moved by the image of “the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4)? I consider the following to be the most beautiful verse in the Bible concerning the death of God’s people:
Precious in the sight of the LORD
Is the death of His saints.
From the time of Adam’s fall, death in the Bible is presented as a part of life. The writer of Hebrews sums it up succinctly: “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). The countdown to death begins at birth. You and I are dying at this very moment. Given that fact, how is it possible that the Bible can treat the death of believers so lightly?
The answer lies in a paradox: though death begins when we are born, life begins when we are born again by the Spirit of God through faith in Christ. Many Christians have the mistaken notion that eternal life begins when they die. But that is not biblically accurate. Eternal life begins when we are born again into the Kingdom of God. Jesus Himself defines eternal life this way: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
If you know God through Jesus Christ, then you are experiencing eternal life right now even though you haven’t physically died. And if you are experiencing eternal life right now, death is no more than a brief interruption to that which you are already experiencing —life that has no end.
The New Testament is filled with passages conveying this positive, transitional perspective on death:
- Jesus refers to death as being “carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom” (Luke 16:22).
- Jesus tells the repentant thief who died beside Him, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
- Paul describes death as being “absent from the body and . . . present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).
- More than a dozen times death is described as “sleep” —the temporary status of the body from which it will be awakened in resurrection at the end of the age (John 11:11; Acts 7:60; 1 Thessalonians 4:13).
- Paul says to die is gain since we’ll be with Christ, and he calls death “far better” than being on earth (Philippians 1:21, 23).
- When we die, our bodies (our “earthly house, this tent”) will be destroyed, but we will inherit “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
- Death is “the last enemy that will be destroyed” (1 Corinthians 15:26).
- Those who die are “blessed” and have the ability to “rest from their labors” (Revelation 14:13).
- Jesus describes the separation of death as merely temporary: “A little while, and you will not see Me,” he says. “And again a little while, and you will see Me” (John 16:16).
The Bible, then, gives us the full truth about death. It isn’t something to fear, but a journey begun at birth, culminating in our final destination: being conformed to the image of Christ for all eternity (Romans 8:29).
The Faces of Death
The word death means “separation.” The Bible speaks of three kinds of death: physical death, which is separation of the spirit and soul from the body; spiritual death, the separation of the human spirit from God in this life; and second death, the separation from God for eternity.
James describes physical death in this way: “The body without the spirit is dead” (James 2:26). The death of Rachel, the wife of the Old Testament patriarch Jacob, is expressed as “her soul . . . departing” (Genesis 35:18). Solomon describes the separation this way: “The spirit will return to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
While on the cross, Jesus confirmed this separation between the spiritual and the physical as He experienced it, saying, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit’” (Luke 23:46). Matthew 27:50 adds that Jesus “yielded up His spirit.”
We also see the distinction between physical death and spiritual death in the account of the church’s first martyr: “They stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’” (Acts 7:59). When Stephen’s spirit left his body, his body fell into the state we call physical death —which isn’t the cessation of one’s existence, as we can see by the heavenly reception of his spirit.
In physical death, the spirit and the soul leave the body and move either into the presence of God or into isolation from God. There are no exceptions; the statistics regarding death are 100 percent —except for Christians who are alive at the moment of the Rapture (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). As the saying goes, death is still the number one killer in the world.
Spiritual death refers to our separation from God. Because of our sin, we have fallen short of the glory of God. We are separated from Him. Even though we are alive physically, we experience a separation the Bible describes as death: “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). When sin entered the world through Adam, it spread to everyone, so that all unregenerate men and women are dead spiritually —separated from God (Romans 5:12).
The last form of death, second death, is the final banishment from God —the final misery of the wicked in hell following the Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:11) at the end of the Millennium. John describes this second death in the book of Revelation:
The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
I have tried to bring understanding to this subject by using a little mathematical formula: if you have been born only once, you will have to die twice. But if you have been born twice, you will have to die only once (and you may even escape that one death if Jesus returns to the earth during your lifetime).
All of us are born once (our physical birth), but if we are not born again through the Spirit and the Word of God (John 3:3-8; 1 Peter 1:23), we will die twice: once physically, when our bodies expire, and again at God’s final judgment. However, if we are born the second time through trusting in Jesus Christ as our Savior, we will die physically, but then we will never die again. This is what our Lord means when He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
I must note here that death also brings about another kind of separation —the separation from loved ones, which we feel physically, spiritually, and emotionally. The psalmist writes,
Loved one and friend You have put far from me,
And my acquaintances into darkness.
Some years ago, I confronted cancer and the possibility of my own death. My greatest fear was that I’d leave my wife and my children alone. I could see the fear and worry in their faces, and that grieved me. By the grace of God, that separation didn’t come. But for some people, the pain of loss in this life is only a foretaste of the greater pain to come when believing and nonbelieving loved ones are separated forever.
In his book Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life, Eugene O’Kelly describes his diagnosis of terminal brain cancer at age fifty-three. In 2002 he was the CEO of KPMG, one of the largest accounting and financial services companies in the world. He received his terminal diagnosis in 2005 and died four months later, leaving behind his wife and two daughters. Yet he had reflected very deeply on this eventuality when his first child was born, years before the diagnosis:
On the day my daughter Gina was born, the nurse placed her in Corinne’s arms. I moved closer to my wife and baby girl, awed by what lay before me. My newborn daughter was staggeringly beautiful. . . . Before I could touch her, she reached out, startling me, and grabbed my finger. She held on tightly.
A look of shock darkened my face.
That day and the next I walked around as if in a fog. Corinne picked up on my odd, distracted behavior. Finally, she confronted me.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded, “You’re acting very strange.”
I looked away.
“What is it?” she asked. “Tell me.”
I couldn’t hide it any longer. “The moment she grabbed my finger,” I said, “it hit me that someday I’ll have to say good-bye to her.”[7]
The believer, however, has a radically different perspective. We grieve, of course. We miss our loved ones with every fiber of our being, and our suffering is real. But we also know that the separation is not what it seems, that life consists of more than the visible. Deep in our mourning, our souls are kindled by the eternal hope of reunion with those we have lost, after which there will be no more parting.
Non-Christians only meet to part again; Christians only part to meet again.
There’s a vast chasm of difference between those two outlooks. As Paul points out, we need not “sorrow as others who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Dr. S. I. McMillen and Dr. David E. Stern observed the truth of this in their book None of These Diseases: “After sitting beside hundreds of deathbeds, we have seen this recurring pattern. People with a strong faith tend to die in peace. People without faith tend to die in terror and torment.”[8]
In his book Fear Not!: Death and the Afterlife from a Christian Perspective, Ligon Duncan explains that believers are animated by a hope that affects positively this life as well as the one to come:
The apostle Paul says emphatically, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!’” (verse 32b). . . . He is not simply trusting in Christ so that this life might be more full or more prosperous; instead, he is trusting in Christ for this life and forevermore. . . . Christian hope is a hope that not only controls our present living, but also our anticipation of what will come to be beyond this life.[9]
The Fear of Death
I heard a story about a man who goes to the doctor for his annual physical. As he leaves, the doctor promises to call with the results. A couple of days pass before the call comes. The doctor says, “Are you seated? I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
The man turns pale and tells the doctor to continue.
“Well,” the doctor says, “you’ve got forty-eight hours to live.”
“What?” the man stammers.
“Now for the worst,” the doctor says.
“How could anything be any worse than that?” the man shouts.
“Well, it’s just that I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday.”
Calls like this happen only in bad jokes. But doctors make similar calls bearing fatal news every day. While life has no two-minute warning, time does run out. Don’t we want to have our lives, our homes, and our eternal souls in order when that moment comes?
We say we want to be ready, but the problem is, death is high on our fear list. We’d rather not talk about it. So in this section of the chapter, I want to present biblical reasons that death should not be feared. If you are a Christian who remains apprehensive about death, even a little bit, I want this section to encourage you to replace your fear with biblical hope and assurance. I pray that the biblical truths presented here will move you toward faith in Christ so that His life, not your death, brings you to joyful anticipation of the future.
There are only two ways to face the future: with fear or with faith. Those who live by faith in the Son of God (Galatians 2:20) will find all their fears —especially the fear of death —consumed by the security of His person and the certainty of His promises.
The Prince of Death Has Been Defeated
The author of the book of Hebrews declares that Jesus conquered death by death, freeing us from the fear of death:
Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
From the Garden of Eden until Jesus’ sacrificial death, the devil used death to gain the upper hand and enjoy the last laugh. Satan stirred in people the desire to violate God’s laws and then watched them reap death —the reward of their sin. Paul writes that “the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). It was quite a system. We failed to be obedient, and we died for it —every time.
In His death and resurrection, the Son of God played the devil’s own trump card. Just as David took the sword of Goliath and cut off his head with it, Jesus took the weapon of Satan and defeated him with it. The Cross must have seemed like the ultimate victory for Satan, but it was precisely the opposite. When Christ by His own death paid the penalty for sin, He took the sting out of the devil’s condemnation.
When Jesus stepped from the open tomb on Resurrection Sunday, Satan’s defeat was certain. His weapon of death had been destroyed. He is still alive and active, but his failure is a foregone conclusion. He must settle for winning the smaller battles, because the war he started has been lost forever.
Satan’s last hope is to convince you to live as if the victory of Christ never happened. He would love for you to be enslaved to the fear of death. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo wrote that “nothing is so calculated to enslave the mind as fearing death.”[10] The author of Hebrews, undoubtedly a learned Jewish Christian, may have been aware of Philo’s words, for he expresses the same sentiment, saying those who fear death “were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:15). If you do fear death, your fright is based on a lie. It is God’s truth that will set you free (John 8:32).
Steve and Ann Campbell of Hampton, Tennessee, were sitting in their breakfast room one day, reading and relaxing. Their little dog, Gigi, a Maltipoo (Maltese and poodle mix), was asleep on the bench in the bay window. Suddenly a jolt rocked the room and toppled Gigi from the bench. Nothing was hurt but the little dog’s pride. The couple wondered what had caused all the commotion. They couldn’t find any clues until they spotted a large hawk outside lying beneath the bay window. The bird had swooped down, talons out, to get Gigi with no regard for the protective pane of glass. A few minutes later, the hawk shook off its stupor and vanished into the sky, minus its canine snack.
The devil wants to get his talons into us. The power of the Resurrection, however, provides a pane of protection that cannot be broken. Satan may knock himself out trying, but he can’t claim us. Because Christ died, we have lives that are forgiven; because Christ rose, we have lives that are forever.
The Power of Death Has Been Destroyed
The prophet Isaiah, in an outburst of hope, predicts a day when the Lord will destroy death and restore His people:
He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the LORD has spoken.
Hosea, a contemporary of Isaiah, also foretells Christ’s victory over death:
I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death.
O Death, I will be your plagues!
O Grave, I will be your destruction!
These two prophecies are the first in the Bible to declare that death itself would die. The New Testament leaves no doubt as to the meaning of these words:
When this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the book of Revelation, the apostle John describes what life will be like in heaven when these prophecies are fulfilled: “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
The apostle Paul reminds Timothy that through His resurrection, Christ has “abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).
And in one of the most poignant passages in the New Testament on the inviolability of God’s love for His children, Paul includes death in the list of realities that will never separate us from that love:
I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesse Irvin Overholtzer, the founder of Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF), was growing old. He knew he had few remaining years in this life. He and his wife, Ruth, invited a young nurse from India to stay with them while she attended classes at the nearby CEF Institute. When Overholtzer suffered a seizure, she was up with him throughout the night. Yet at dawn she took off for classes as if she’d gotten a full night’s sleep.
“Isn’t it wonderful to be young and full of life?” Ruth said to her husband.
“Yes,” Overholtzer answered, “but it is more wonderful to be old and ready to go to heaven!”[11]
The Process of Death Has Been Described
An eleven-year-old wrote to Pope John Paul with this question: “What is it like when you die? Nobody will tell me. I just want to know, but I don’t want to do it.”[12] Jesus tells a story in Luke 16:19-31 that offers a penetrating view of what happens after death. In fact, this story tells us more about life after death than we might expect.
His parable concerns two men —one rich and one poor. The pauper’s name is Lazarus (though not the same man Jesus raised from the dead). We don’t know the rich man’s name, but we know his lifestyle. He wears the finest clothing and eats the finest cuisine. He has the best of everything, and he lets everyone know about it —even Lazarus, the beggar at his gates, who hopes to be thrown a few crumbs from the bountiful table. Lazarus is not only hungry but also very ill, covered with sores that the town dogs lick. His is a miserable existence.
Lazarus, however, possesses one thing that no one can take away: his love for God. The rich man possesses one thing he cannot keep: his life. Both men die. On the other side of the gate that separates this life from eternity, the beggar Lazarus is carried by heavenly angels to the bosom of Abraham. Now he is kissed by angels rather than licked by dogs.
So it will be for you and me. We won’t simply be “beamed up” to heaven. We will be carried there by angels. This passage provides one of the euphemisms we employ for death: “The angels took him.” It may sound like a cliché from a Victorian greeting card, but it is biblical truth as applied to believers in Christ. On the day when you wait for the curtains to be drawn on this life, God’s messengers stand ready to bear you away on life’s ultimate journey. The great hymn writer Isaac Watts expressed it in fine poetry:
Lord, when I leave this mortal ground,
And thou shalt bid me rise and come,
Send a beloved angel down,
Safe to conduct my spirit home.[13]
In his children’s book Somewhere Angels, Larry Libby suggests that God sends angels so we won’t have to make that journey alone. Great voyages need great companions, and God says, “When it’s your time to come, I’ll send someone to bring you. You won’t need to fear; you won’t need to find your own way. And the person I will send knows the way very well.”[14] At the moment when you first set eyes on your forever home, an angel will be there to share your joy. As you realize you’ve now been made perfect, with every ailment gone, an angel will be there to laugh with you, to hear your shouts of triumph.
On that journey, Christians will experience none of the travel worries we face now —no getting lost, no missing the bus, no waiting for the next plane. God has an angel assigned to bring you home. In the face of such assurance, how can we fear?
The Picture of Death Has Been Developed
On December 7, 1941, Rev. Peter Marshall was speaking to the cadets at Annapolis. A “day of infamy” was unfolding at Pearl Harbor, which now lay in the flames of an enemy attack. The room was filled with young men who would soon sacrifice their lives for their country. He told them the story of a dying child —a little boy with a disease who asked his mother, “What is it like to die? Does it hurt?” The mother thought for a minute, then said, “Do you remember when you were smaller, and you played very hard and fell asleep on your mommy’s bed? You awoke to find yourself somehow in your own bed. Your daddy had come along, with his big, strong arms and lifted you, undressed you, put you into your pajamas as you slept. Honey, that’s what death is like. It’s waking up in your own room.”[15]
Like this little boy, most of us are curious about the process of death. Perhaps no single verse of Scripture gives us a more comforting picture of it than the widely quoted Psalm 23:4:
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
The sheer beauty of the passage never fails to move us, of course. But the power of this truth hits us at a deep level in times of suffering. When we face death —our own or the death of a loved one —this verse should be held close to our hearts. Its poetic phrases teach us several things.
DEATH IS A JOURNEY, NOT A DESTINATION
I walk through the valley. . . .
Pastor and author Leith Anderson tells of a woman who buried her husband after he lost a battle with cancer. A short time later, she found that the same disease had come for her. She could only await her reunion with the husband she had loved and lost.
When she knew she had only a few days left, the woman invited Anderson and his wife to her home. They sat with deep emotion, holding her hands as she spoke casually of the reality of death and anticipating her joy in the presence of God. She talked about her children and wanted to know all about the Andersons’ kids. You’d have thought she was preparing for a cruise instead of a departure from this life.
A constant stream of friends came to comfort her, but it was the other way around. They left deeply blessed. And those who couldn’t visit heard encouragement from her on the phone. Through it all, she never thought of herself. Everything she did illustrated her concern and love for others. Her hope for the afterlife enabled her to use death as an opportunity to reach out and bless as many people as possible.[16]
Most of us speak of hope for the afterlife. But the way we approach death shows what we really believe. Those committed to a biblical perspective have no reason to treat death as their greatest enemy. They see it as another journey that calls for preparation. They say their good-byes, they get their affairs in order, and they prepare their spirits for the joy of a new existence.
As we know, many people today believe this life is all there is —that physical death and spiritual death are one and the same and that their entire existence will come to an end. For people who believe this way, it’s perfectly reasonable to fear death. They think it’s the final curtain. Believing this life to be all there is, they clutch it tightly. To these people, life must be a source of deep frustration and even despair because it has so many limitations, so much disappointment. You come into the world, you’re young and strong, then you reach the top of the hill and begin a long, sad descent —and at the bottom lurks nothing but darkness.
Christians, however, live in a brighter now because everything in life has a reason. The ups and downs point to an eternity that will fulfill all our hopes and repay all our frustrations. Poor Lazarus had reason for hope. He knew what other hurting believers know —that this world was never their home anyway. They are citizens of heaven, ambassadors of a bright reality.
We must remember that for believers and nonbelievers alike, death is not the end. We are all eternal creatures. The distinction is whether one’s eternity will be brighter than a billion suns or darker than the imagination can conceive.
In the “Shepherd Psalm,” David sees death not as a destination but as a journey through a dark country —a journey we make with God’s hand in ours. My friend Pastor Rob Morgan describes how this journey reveals the transitory nature of death:
Psalm 23:4 does not speak of a cave or a dead-end trail. It’s a valley, which means it has an opening on both ends. . . . The emphasis is on through, which indicates a temporary state, a transition, a brighter path ahead, a hopeful future. For Christians, problems are always temporary and blessings always eternal (as opposed to non-Christians, whose blessings are temporal and whose problems are eternal). Valleys don’t go on forever, and the road ahead is always bright for the child of God, as bright as His promises. There are no cul-de-sacs on His maps, no blind alleys in His will, no dead ends in His guidance.[17]
Paul speaks of being “absent from the body and . . . present with the Lord,” indicating that the two conditions are one and the same (2 Corinthians 5:8). As James M. Campbell observed, death is an exit gate and heaven is an entrance. But the two are arranged so closely that one opens as the other shuts. When one person says that a dying person is “lying at the gates of death,” another could say that, no, he is “lying at the gate of heaven.” And both would have it right.[18]
DEATH IS A SHADOW, NOT A REALITY
The valley of the shadow of death . . .
When I was a young boy, my father was the pastor of a church in Toledo, Ohio. During his eleven-year pastorate there, the church relocated to a property that had once been a luxurious mansion. The mansion was restored and an auditorium was built on one end of it, and that became our new church.
Behind this mansion was a huge ten-car garage. The parsonage was on the second floor of the garage in what had formerly been the servants’ quarters. One of my nightly chores was to carry out the trash to containers located outside the cavernous garage. When I waited until after dark to do my chores, I had to carry the trash through the eerie, dimly lit garage. At night it was a foreboding place, filled with shadows that seemed to hide unthinkable horrors. In my terror, I ran through those shadows, possibly setting new speed records for trash-and-carry.
During daylight hours I could clearly see that I was in no danger —no monsters lurked in that garage. But darkness does something to a place, doesn’t it? It distorts. It becomes a canvas for the imagination. The good news is that shadows are only the deflection of light. They can frighten, but they can do no harm.
As Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse was driving home from the funeral of his first wife, he and his children were overcome with grief. As he sought some word of comfort for his kids, a huge moving van passed them, and its shadow swept over the car. Dr. Barnhouse said, “Children, would you rather be run over by a truck or by its shadow?”
“The shadow, of course,” one of the children said. “It’s harmless.”
“Two thousand years ago,” the father said, “the truck ran over the Lord Jesus . . . in order that only its shadow might run over us.”[19]
For the Christian, death is but a shadow. No longer is it the true substance of our fear; it’s just a momentary obscuring of the light. Jesus’ promise to every believer is this: “Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19). He also says, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die” (John 11:25-26).
DEATH IS LONELY, BUT YOU ARE NEVER ALONE
You are with me. . . .
Something strange but subtle happens in Psalm 23:4. You may not have noticed, but an editor would. The narrative mode changes: He becomes You. In the first three verses, we’ve seen the Lord referred to in the third person: “He makes me to lie down; He restores; He leads me . . . for His name’s sake.” Very abruptly, however, third person becomes second person, and David says, “You are with me.” He stops talking about the Shepherd and begins talking to Him. It’s as if he has been talking about God, and then in the midst of the shadows he realizes that God is right there: “I will fear no evil; for You are with me.” An essay becomes an intimate conversation.
It all makes beautiful sense if you’ve ever walked through that valley. You think about God, and suddenly you find yourself caught up in a conversation with Him. His presence suddenly changes your whole line of thought. Over the years, I’ve spoken to many people who were traveling their darkest roads, and they’ve often told me that they were never more aware of the presence of the Shepherd than when they were walking in that shadow.
Corrie ten Boom once ran into an old friend who was only going to be in town for the day. So they dispensed with small talk and had a substantial conversation together. Corrie asked him, “Are you afraid to die?”
Yes, he was, he admitted. Corrie was surprised, knowing that her friend had a deep faith in God. She asked, “Why are you afraid? You’ve been a believer for as long as I’ve known you. Surely you know Jesus won’t leave you alone for one moment.”
He explained that he was afraid because death was the unknown for him; he didn’t know what to expect. So they began talking about Jesus and how death was also unknown to Him when He went to the Cross. He had never died before. Surely He, too, had to confront fear. But now Jesus knows all about death. He has been there. He has conquered it. And He promises never to leave or forsake us. He says He will be with us always, and the journey through death is no exception.
The old man smiled, at peace, and thanked God for the conversation.[20]
I’ve counseled with many people as they sat in death’s waiting room, and experience has proved to me that God makes His presence known as they walk through the valley. He reaches for their hands. He whispers words of comfort and promise. And it’s not limited just to the dying people themselves; it’s also for those who grieve for them. They, too, walk through the valley, and God reaches to them as well.
The Bible is filled with comforting promises such as these:
God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear.
He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
We never have to walk that road alone. The Shepherd appears at our shoulder, and as we reach the gate, angels are there to attend us and usher us into the wonderful surprises that await us.
This life seems like the “real” one, but it is only a preface, and we have yet to see the first chapter. As Hungarian composer Franz Liszt expressed in the introduction to his symphonic poem Les Preludes, “What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?”[21] We think the story ends with death, but the truth is, death is only the beginning. The Bible grounds our hope, assuring us that what follows is too wonderful for us to understand now.
In the seven books of C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series, four children explore another world, ruled by Aslan the Lion. In the first six books, Aslan sends them back to their home in England after each adventure. As the final book draws to its close, the children find themselves in a brilliantly enhanced Narnia, and they don’t want to leave. Their own world seems pale by comparison. But Aslan has a surprise. He reveals that the railway accident that brought them to Narnia this time was a real one, and they have, in earthly terms, died and left their everyday world for the last time. “The term is over,” Aslan says. “The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning.”
The great Lion then begins to transform into something that is —like the adventures facing the children —too wonderful to write about. Their lives on earth and in the old Narnia were only “the cover and the title page,” and now they are truly beginning the first chapter of the real story. It is a story that “no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”[22]
Born in 1800, a century before Lewis, John Todd also saw the significance and hope of death. Todd was a Vermont boy who at the age of six lost both parents. He lost his siblings, too, when they were divided among relatives. John was taken in by a kindly aunt. He lived with her for fifteen years until he left to study for the ministry. The years passed, and he became an effective pastor. One day he received a letter from the aunt who raised him. She was dying, and she had the same questions we all ask: “What awaits me in death? Is this the end?” John could feel her anxiety in every line she wrote.
John loved his aunt, and he sat down to answer her letter. He began with the story of a little boy of six who waited for the arrival of the woman who would become a mother to him:
I can still recall my disappointment when instead of coming for me yourself, you sent your servant, Caesar, to fetch me.
I remember my tears and my anxiety as, perched high on your horse and clinging tight to Caesar, I rode off to my new home. Night fell before we finished the journey, and I became lonely and afraid.
“Do you think she’ll go to bed before I get there?” I asked Caesar anxiously.
“Oh no,” he said reassuringly. “She’ll sure stay up for you. When we get out of these here woods, you’ll see her candle shining in the window.”
Presently we did ride out in the clearing, and there, sure enough, was your candle. I remember you were waiting at the door, that you put your arms close about me —a tired and bewildered little boy. You had a big fire burning on the hearth, a hot supper waiting on the stove. After supper you took me to my new room, heard my prayers, and then sat beside me until I fell asleep.
Someday soon God will send for you, to take you to a new home. Don’t fear the summons, the strange journey, or the dark messenger of death. God can be trusted to do as much for you as you were kind enough to do for me so many years ago. At the end of the road you will find love and a welcome awaiting, and you will be safe in God’s care.[23]
John Todd painted for his aunt a picture of new life as beautiful as any person could hope for. But I can assure you that it is only a dim shadow compared to the magnificent beauty and joy awaiting us when we finally close this gate and open the new one into God’s presence.