“Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as the Church
prepares to celebrate the coming (adventus) of Christ in his
incarnation, and also looks ahead to his final advent as judge at the
end of time. The readings and liturgies not only direct us towards
Christ’s birth, they also challenge the modern reluctance to
confront the theme of divine judgement...The Four Last Things –
Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell – have been traditional themes
for Advent meditation.” (taken from Common Worship: Times and
Seasons). So for each of the
four Sundays of Advent, I'll offer a meditation on one of the themes
– this week it's Death.
We
live in a strange society where contradictory views about death are
held simultaneously. Benjamin Franklin famously said that nothing was
certain except death and taxes, but we still don't seem to have come
to terms with the fact of death. Advances in medicine have given us
a false sense of security, believing that death can be postponed
indefinitely - so when it does come it undermines our confidence and
reminds us of our own mortality. Another symptom of this is that
when someone we love dies, it is very hard to let them go. We speak
not of 'death' but of 'falling asleep', 'being at rest', 'going into
the next room', 'becoming a star'. Graves and places of death become
shrines, 'sacred' places where loved ones can still be met with. It
is good and right to remember and celebrate those who have died, but
we shouldn't pretend they are still with us in any way
more than memories or influence. One
of the prayers in the funeral service says this: “Now give us
strength and courage to leave them in your care” but too often we
do not do this and instead try to hold on to them.
Conversely, we also
embrace and seek death, so much so that Pope John Paul II spoke of a
'culture of death'. This is seen in obvious ways such as wars,
terrorism, abortions and euthanasia, but also in more subtle ways
such as the oppression of the 'weak' by the 'strong', and the ever
increasing number of those treated as 'weak' because of poverty, lack
of education, looks, illness, race or even because they hold an
out-of-fashion opinion. But on a personal level we also embrace sin
which is the opposite of the abundant life that God intends for us,
therefore we prefer death to life.
The 'culture of death'
is caused by our lack of understanding about life. If we were to
truly believe that all humans are made in the image and likeness of
God, we would understand the sanctity of all human life and therefore
we would treat all humanity with the dignity they deserve. We would
also see that living as God intends us to, according to his rules is
the only way to be truly human and to have life in all its fullness.
The tendency we have to avoid death is due to our lack of
understanding about death and our fear of death. Death has a certain
finality to it: “a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last
and is no more” (Job 14:10), we are separated from our loved ones
by a barrier that cannot be crossed. The dead don't hang around as
spirits or ghosts nor do they 'infuse' the world around us nor can we
communicate with them; the land of the living and the 'land' of the
dead are quite separate. And this reality frightens us, because we
don't want to lose those we love, nor do we want to go to an
'unknown' place. And this fear is even more acute in those without
faith, because in the non-religious worldview death is truly the end
and more than that, as life is just the product of random chance,
life itself is ultimately pointless, meaningless and valueless.
The good news of
Christianity about death is that as we are made in the image and
likeness of God, our life has a value and a purpose. And thankfully
death is not the end. Jesus destroyed the power of death by rising
from the dead, so death no longer has the final word, death no longer
necessarily needs to be feared. What happens to us after death is
the subject of the coming weeks.
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