How do you feel about death? For most of our culture, it's a weird mix of dread and lust, what author Walker Percy calls the Thanatos Syndrome. We are intrigued with the morbid and afraid of our own mortality. Our doctors and hospitals come up with more and more ways to stave off death, in some instances not necessarily prolonging "life" if your definition of life is something beyond a pulse and heartbeat.

How does God feel about death? Psalm 116:15 says "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." Whoa! So exactly what does He mean by that?! My take on it is that the life we Christians lead down here, before we move into the next phase of eternity with Him, is rather insignificant in the big scheme of things to God. It's our training ground, our battleground, our march to maturity as believers; and in all those things God walks with us and helps us along, delighting in our increased love for Him and for one another, dancing over us as we gain wisdom and understanding of who He is and who we are in Christ. But mostly, God is excited for us to get on to "the better place". And yet, in His infinite patience and wisdom, He leaves us down here to go through the trials and trails of life, gleaning understanding, putting on the "new man" and sloughing off the "old", becoming who we are meant to be if we are willing to walk the path of obedience.

I've been reading Ecclesiastes a lot for the past year or so, sent back there time and time again to hear that there is a "perfect time for everything", including life and death, and to hear that regardless of who you are or what you do in this life, all will die in the end. To some it all sounds morbid and depressing, but it finishes on a high note and, really, it's just pointing out what we all, deep in our gut, already know: what happens "down here" isn't the grand finale. Yes, there are good, even great things that happen down here, and we should see them for what they are and rejoice in them. (Ecclesiastes tells us that as well.) But in the end we need to figure out that the only thing that matters, the only way to live, is to "fear (revere) God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person" (Eccl. 12:13).

How does that apply to everyone and what does it have to do with death? Not a whole lot, if you are living with only this world in mind. If you think that this world is "it", then all the good and all the fun ends when your life in this world ends. If this world is "it", then death means the end of the fun. But Paul says, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain" (Phil. 1:21). For him, life meant who he was in Christ, who Christ was in him, how Christ was allowed to live through Paul's life; it was all about Christ. If he died, that just continued in a bigger and better way that he had only an inkling of, but knew beyond a doubt was Truth.

It's when we get caught up in the world that our view of death gets skewed. For a lot of people, their take on Paul's proclamation would be: to live is nightclubs, to live is parties, to live is golf, to live is financial success, to live is living for the moment. When that's our view, then to die is always loss.

But as Psalm 116 shows, that's not God's view of the death of His saints. And His view of the death of the unsaved is heartwrenching, for He says in Ezekiel: "Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked, rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?" (Ezek. 18:23). He continues to pour out His mercy, patiently offering opportunities for man to "turn from his ways" and be labeled as one is His saints. For those who are His saints, we need to live this life down here to the fullest, with proper perspective of its temporal significance and "what we're really down here for". More importantly, we also need to keep the right view of the hope of eternity and who we are in Christ, which in turn produces the right perspective of death.

(written 2/07)