Dying

That’s a bit in your face isn’t it? The title of the blog that is. Why would I write about dying? We’d rather avoid it if we could wouldn’t we? Even as Christians! That’s one thing I’ve never really understood if I’m honest. Why is it that Christians talk about longing to go heaven, the great place you can only apparently get to when you die, and yet at the same time try to avoid dying just as much as the next person. If heaven really is so good…? I don’t mean to be flippant. And, honestly I get it, as least at one level. Maybe we don’t talk much about heaven because in truth we simply don’t really think it can be better than what we have here. But then, for some that is far from the truth. Take the slave song “Swing low, sweet chariot.” The point of the song it seems, is to ask for God to come and take them home (heaven) because life on earth is not worth living. It’s asking for a way out. And for some that’s the truth. But not for most of us. Most of us don’t want to die because we’d rather stay here. And we have lots of good reasons to stay: family, friends, loved ones, children, grandchildren, holidays to go on, careers to build, careers to maintain, retirement to enjoy, life still to live, promises to keep, a fiancé to marry, a partner to find, a mission to fulfil, a calling to follow…And because I’m human, that’s how I mostly think. Death is the enemy. It is actually. God thinks so too. Death was never part of God’s creation. It’s the result of the choice to follow evil not love. And, we die! We all know that. And we find it hard, so very hard to live with! So why am I writing about dying? Because yesterday it was right in my face. And in lots of other people’s faces too. I was at East Surrey hospital, standing outside in the cold (and it was cold) with hundreds of staff to remember someone who had died. He was an ambulance driver who died of COVID-19. He died on his 52nd birthday. It was a tragedy. People are heartbroken, his wife and children especially. He was by all accounts a wonderful man: funny, courageous, talented, a man everyone genuinely loved. He was a Christian. People prayed for his healing. I did. Yet he died. I wonder sometimes what God is doing. The little boy in me wept. I wanted to weep as I watched his family, his colleagues, his friends who are devastated. I woke up this morning and realised I had been dreaming of speaking at the service (I was asked to pray yesterday). I was saying that Peter now knew more fully than he had ever known, the magnificent love of God. That he is now more fully alive than he has ever been. And, I believe that with all my heart. And yet I’m angry and confused in equal measure. And his family are feeling their pain far, far more than me. And yet, they too, believe what I believe, which will hold them and keep them in this difficult time. It holds me too. Sorry if I’ve spilled too much angst. It is, of course mixed with faith. Or perhaps, more accurately it is part of faith. Here’s the thing: being human is a struggle between what we can see and what we believe. Dying is inevitable but it is so very, very hard. Life can be so very, very hard. Sometimes, perhaps mostly, we find ourselves wondering what God is doing. Living with faith is living in the tension of what we see and experience, and what we believe. We must hold onto what we believe with all our hearts. We must. When God appears to be doing nothing, we trust him anyway. But we must not deny the pain of things gone wrong, and dying. Turns out God is never so close as to those who mourn.