Life has a number of pedal tones to it - underlying themes that draw us back from time to time. Death is one of these themes. Like a pedal tone at the end of a fugue it grows increasingly louder the longer the song is played. No matter how far afield our melody strays, death will be answered. It is a note that must be and will be resolved - eventually eclipsing all other melodies. Studies show that 1 out of 1 people will die. Wow, that is really depressing. Wasn't this supposed to be a devotional blog?

Holding On to Life

If all this talk of death seems rather un-spiritual to you I would remind you that the Bible is full of wisdom about the nearness of death and the tenuousness of life. Psalm 103 verse 14-17 says

Now that is a stark picture. Man is like a flower. The wind blows it away and its place remembers it no more. It's as if it was never there. Consider for a moment the billions of people who have lived and died - and nothing is ever written about them. No songs sung, no biographies, no faint remembrances entombed in faded tint-type pictures... nothing. They are gone and the place where they lived and spent years remembers them no more.

When I was 7 I remember visiting my Great Grandma Kruger. She lived on her own till around age 93 and then the family moved her to a rest home. I remember walking down the austere halls with that foreign smell that seems so alien to a 7 year old boy used to tearing up and down a tree lined street in search of outdoor adventure. It was the smell of the closet - the smell of fragile things shut up and protected.

My great grandmother was tall in her day, but by the time I met her she was stooped with age. She shuffled along with tiny steps as I held her hand. She smiled at me and said "My... ain't you all grown up? I saw you once when you was a baby." This is the standard opening line for any female relative to a small boy. As she spoke her dentures clacked up and down in a way that was startling and a little disturbing to a child. In spite of my shyness I could not take my eyes off of those teeth merrily clattering about in her mouth as she spoke, as if they were at odds with her lips and competing for attention. I smiled and thanked her.

We spent some time in her room, a tiny spartan affair with tiled floors and a throw rug. The bed was one of those hospital types with gears and levers to put it in different positions. It was framed in bright tube aluminum rails. That same bright aluminum was a prominent feature of the small bathroom with rails for the tub and toilet. She had some nice plants on the window shelf, each one carefully placed on a doily. At the time it seemed like a foreign landscape. As I look back on it now I can see that her place on the earth had already begun to forget her even before her journey was complete. The baking of warm bread on a summer afternoon or the planting of flowers in a spring garden had been replaced by tiled floors and tube aluminum rails.

My father and mother chatted away in loud voices with my great grandma leaning forward with a strained look to hear each phrase. They went through lists of obscure relatives that I did not know and would never meet

The conversation went on like that for some time. When Mom and Dad saw that grandma was tiring (or perhaps they ran out of obscure relatives to catalog) we prayed with her, said our goodbyes and left.

That's my memory of my Great Grandmother - a vague memory of a small woman bent with the weight of her 96 years living out the remainder of her days in a small room with aluminum rails and carefully tended plants. I have no real knowledge of her. I do not know of her joys or tears. I don't know what she was really like. Instead, I possess a caricature in my mind of an ancient woman in her last days. My children will never even have that much of a recollection of her. When I and my brother and my cousins pass on, so too will her living memory pass on. She will be little more than a name in a family tree or a keepsake passed on from child to child with the words, "I think this belonged to your great great grandmother Kruger".

Wow. I thought I was depressing before. Now I've gone completely off the deep end. I really have to stop reading post-romantic Russian authors. "Ok", you say, "I get it. We are here a short time, we all die, and we are not remembered beyond a generation or two. Besides making us feel forgotten do you have a point?" Stop a moment and consider how you feel about what I have said. Do you see death as an ending or beginning? If we are honest, our visceral reaction to any discussion of death is to shun it - to shy away. We have forgotten to live in hope of the resurrection! We don't see death as a graduation, but as an ordeal - a punishment. We accept death's sting even though Jesus has taken it away. Why? Because we love this life so dearly.

I'm afraid it's true. We have an iron claws grasp of life. In our modern world we shuffle death away to the sidelines - like an unpleasant necessity. Our funeral homes are pristine, quiet places. We embalm the dead and dress them in their finest. We make up their faces to mask the fact that they are gone. When someone dies before the age of 60 we shake our heads and say "tsk tsk... such a young man...". People die in hospitals, hospices and rest homes - removed from "normal" life. We are uncomfortable talking about it. We avoid writing wills and making plans for those that remain. We are death-a-phobics. We are scared to death of death. We bring to bear all the voices of our song to try and drown out the pedal tone of death.

Yet death marches on us all. It is a powerful awesome note rumbling along in the bass. It's the kind of note that you can feel through the seat of your pants as you sit in the pew. The older we get, the more death becomes a pending feature of our song. No amount of plastic surgery, no medical breakthrough, no exercise regimen can mute the pedal tone of death. It's rumbling will eventually demand that all of the notes of our personal fugue come into harmony with it. From dust we are made and to dust we will return. Our lives must eventually find the key center. In the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:

Wow, that is even more depressing. Read the whole chapter if you really want to wallow in it. You might well ask, when does the good stuff start?

Well it might seem counterintuitive but my encouragement to you (yes it is an encouragement) is to stop and listen for a moment to that pedal tone. Instead of blocking it out with music or TV or half a gallon of chocolate chip mint, stop and meditate on it for a moment. You are going to die. Nothing you do can prevent it. God may heal you dozens of times. You may be healthy and satisfied with your life. You might come from a line of ancestors with terrific longevity. In the end, you too will die. Why "meditate" on this morbid topic? Because we miss something precious in our walk with God when we cling to this life too tenaciously.

Death Reminds Us We are Foreigners

This life absorbs us. It contains us and consumes us. Our thoughts, aspirations, dreams and visions all seem to be gathered around this life. Except for the very old or the terminally ill we no longer have a sense that we are traveling to a "final destination". The truth is we do not actually belong here. When our journey here is complete we go home. We are like heavenly foreign exchange students walking through life with our vision fixed on the horizon. Take a look at this great passage from Hebrews 11. After listing men of faith Enoch, Noah and Abraham the author goes on to say:

From this passage it seems that one of the keys to walking by faith is to see yourself as a stranger and a nomad here on this earth. As Christians we do not believe that this is all there is. We are destined for another place - a place especially prepared for us. It's a place where the pedal note of death is replaced by the constant rumbling, thunderous chorus of "Holy Holy Holy is the Lamb of God". The grasping, choking, clawing fear of death that paralyzes the self-aware, unrepentant man does not have any real power over us. The question is, are we able to live with the reality that we are strangers here? Do we as Christians "Long for the City of God", or are we mostly looking more for help with our day to day life here on earth.

When we see this life as a journey we tend to value different things. I go on several business trips each year. My wife is my main travel agent and I am a picky traveler. I don't like certain airlines because I want more legroom. I like direct flights. Some hotel chains are on my black list because the wireless Internet is subpar or they don't serve an adequate continental breakfast. I want a GPS and satellite radio in my rental car. I like all the details to be worked out ahead of time so nothing is left to chance.

Yet, even when Ann has managed to arrange my trip perfectly with everything in its place, I would still rather be home, reading my book in the living room with my little beagle curled up at my feet and the sound of the ping pong table or X-box coming from the basement. Home is where I belong. It's where I'm at ease and comfortable. It's where I'm truly loved. It's where I'm known for who I really am. When life threatens to overwhelm me, it is at home that I find freedom from its relentless pressure. So too, death has "lost it's sting" because we don't really belong here. We are in the process of heading home where we are truly known and loved.

As I age this is what I really value - to be able to be myself and be known for who I am without pretense or artificial barriers. I think we spend the first half of our life trying to figure out who we are the last half of our life trying to figure out how to let others know who we are. But Jesus sees through the dark glass that we can't penetrate for ourselves. He knows us for who we are. Heaven is really home, where we can at last rest and be at peace with who he has made us.

Now I don't want anyone to think that I am advocating an unhealthy obsession with death. I'm not suggesting that we stop living life or stop enjoying the blessings of God. But I am suggesting that as Christians we should not contemplate death with the same shuddering fear of the world. The resurrection allows us to look at death in a different light. We don't love death - but we don't fear it either. After all, ultimately we do not belong here. "Jesus, help us to understand that we are destined for another city. Teach how you have conquered death. We want to walk with you and live the life you have destined for us to live. Amen."

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