Psalm 23:4 NLT

Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me.

Fear is perhaps the most disabling emotion. Our failure to talk about death is often the fruit of fear. We know little about it, we haven’t had experience with it, we know it is an end to all that we know in this world. All this can create fear. Yet, we are in friendship with one who has died, and then rose again to demonstrate that death is not our final state. Jesus now accompanies us. God is with us even as the shadow of death blocks us from the warmth of the sun’s rays. I love the psalmist, for this valley is not a little bit shady. No! It’s the very darkest valley. Whatever we individually face that threatens our mortality is for us in that moment our darkest valley.

Fear is disempowered through knowledge and confidence. By talking about death in its many aspects, our knowledge grows and it loses its power to intimidate us. As for confidence, here is the acid test of our friendship with God. God loves us whatever level of faith we have. It’s me who suffers if I’ve few tools in the tool bag for relating to God. Jayne, who has regular treatment for her pain condition, has deepened her friendship with God through the Jesus prayer. She manages her anxiety and discomfort by resting in the presence of God.

It is possible to pray for “a peaceful and a perfect end”. These are words said each evening in Compline, the prayer office that completes the day and ushers in night. We pray it as we go to bed in case we are to be called home to God in our sleep. Praying for a peaceful death ahead of any sign of that event, is itself a helpful way to discovering the purpose and power in the rod and staff God carries for our comforting.

QUESTION: Are you at ease talking and praying about your death?

PRAYER: Lord, preserve us from fear and help us to lean into your promises never to leave or forsake us.

John 11:25-26 NLT

Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.” 

In the fifteenth century, a medieval manuscript appeared called Ars Moriendi or the “art of dying”. These manuals informed the dying about what to expect, and prescribed prayers, actions and attitudes that would lead to a “good death” and salvation. The Church wanted to instruct priests and laity in the way of dying well.

I cannot remember ever hearing a sermon about how to prepare for death. Yet this is an event common to all. Instead we have a culture of fighting death. So we sign up for endless cycles of treatment in the hope that our lives may be prolonged.

It is always going to be more difficult for those who survive the deceased. Who wants to lose a relative or friend from their life? Yet, we need to encourage each other to take greater responsibility for ourselves in determining the nature of our journey to the grave. Jayne knows I’ve settled not to resist death’s call when it comes. I want to journey with my family, in the comfort of my own home. I would like all of us supported by a hospice team. People to answer our questions and help me manage my pain. I’ve read extensively about the death process as recorded by health professionals. I am as ready as I feel I need to be. Of course, only the reality will test that.

In Christ we have a great hope. Who we leave behind will carry a sadness. Yet, at the same time it affords great comfort if we recognise our death is not an end but a transition point. If we cannot find faith for that, we must admit to having serious questions over the authenticity of Jesus’ message. Even though I was sad when Katey died, my tears were mingled with a joy that she had migrated to God’s presence and her struggles ended and her forever life with Christ begun.

QUESTION: Are you wired to fight death?

PRAYER: I entrust all of my tomorrows to you, God, and choose to live my life with you today.

Revelation 14:13 NLT

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!”

It’s difficult to have appropriate conversations about death in a society that is “death averse”. I remember meeting an experienced health professional who had organised all her own affairs, not least because of what she had observed as a result of her job. But she was unable to engage her grown-up children in the conversation she really wanted to have. This was to advise the children where all the appropriate paperwork was and other essential details that once dead she would no longer be able to communicate. She was nearly in tears as she described her situation.

There is a need to talk about death cross-generationally; the work of the Death Café movement has been brilliant here. People come together to drink tea, eat cake and talk about death. The objective is “to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives”. For info; deathcafe.com/what/

Most people are so death-illiterate that they not only fail to prepare for our own death, but are not a great comfort to either those who are approaching death or their surviving relatives. Lacking a vocabulary, we tend to avoid contact post-funeral and just hope those who survive might return to “normal”, whatever that might be, as soon as possible.

When my first wife died, I felt supported through to the funeral, then everyone went quiet. This was the time I felt most alone. After her death, the house was overwhelmed with beautiful bunches of flowers. After the funeral, nothing. I now seek to send some flowers a couple of weeks after the funeral to say, “You’re not forgotten.” We need to recover a vocabulary for this season of life and unavoidable experience.

QUESTION: Do you have a vocabulary that enables you both to talk about death and with those facing death or family and friends who are supporting them? If not, start building one.

PRAYER: Eternal Father, thank you for the assurance that death is no more than a staging post. 

Isaiah 57:1 NLT

Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come. For those who follow godly paths will rest in peace when they die.

In any conversation about death, the same regrets and questions arise. She died too young, his family were robbed of a wonderful husband and father, no parent should expect to bury their own child. It is difficult for us, especially in so-called developed nations, to accept that the gift of life comes with risks attached. Disease, inhumanity, natural disaster, accidents...there is a long list of inexplicable events that steal away human lives.

While death is an inevitability, the lives we choose are not. We are in part subject to circumstances outside our control and in part in charge of the decisions we take navigating life. God’s invitation is that we live in obedience to God’s ordinance. Put simply, this is to love God and love others (see Matthew 22:37-39). Of course, this challenges our instinctive selfishness, and the fears that if I don’t act for myself, I shall miss out on life’s benefits. The reverse is true in loving God and others; I open a door to being loved myself. Love is the source of our deepest joy, as anyone who has been loved will know.

Most people facing up to their death through illness or old age speak of their need to make peace with their past life. They want to be reconciled to people, express gratitude, and give expression to those periods when they experienced the most happiness. Why wait until the shadow of death hovers? These are the principles of loving God and others. So today is the day to be reconciled. Consideration of death will enable us to live life to the maximum, for we shall address regrets as they happen, renew relationships that go wrong and want to live life to its fullest extent.

QUESTION: Who do you want to be reconciled with, say thank you to, and give thanks for?

PRAYER: May the love of God our Father, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us today and always.

1 Corinthians 15:42b-44 NLT

Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live for ever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

Many people avoid talking or thinking about death, while others live in fear of death, which robs them of enjoying their present for fear of the future. This is upsetting because death is a celebration on the Christian’s journey into eternity. I cared for Katey, my first wife who was diagnosed with a neurological disease. When we asked for a prognosis, the medical profession winced at engaging with the reality of death, which was very frustrating.

Many people in the UK avoid any contact with death until relations begin to die later in our life. On visiting the undertakers, a friend of mine, daughter of the deceased, nearly broke down when I suggested I step outside the chapel of rest and leave them alone with their father’s body to say farewell. Death is no longer normalised within society. It is at best forgotten, at worst discreetly hidden. Yet, unless the Lord returns meantime, we all have to die.

Christians can reignite a creative conversation around death to demystify it and disarm its power to frighten. Preparing for that event is something I’d encourage everyone to do. Reconciling yourself to death enables you to live well.

I cannot know what your perspective on death is. I might have touched a raw nerve of grief, anger or plain confusion. However, death does not need to be a morbid subject, but one that empowers you to live your life now to the fullest extent, safe in the prospect of stepping into God’s eternal embrace.

QUESTION: Will you pause now and reflect on your own death?

PRAYER: Thank you, Jesus, for defeating the power of death through your own resurrection. I trust in you and look forward to new life with you in eternity.