Life After Life

Life After Life

John 14:1-3

            I begin by admitting I stole the title.  Some years ago Dr. Raymond Moody wrote a book entitled Life after Life about near death experiences.  This column will not be about that topic, but the title is appropriate.

            In my office I have a great Far Side cartoon.  The grim reaper is leaving his house for “work,” with his sickle over his shoulder.  His wife, dressed identically to her husband but with an apron, says to him, “Knock ‘em dead today, honey!” 

            We often find humor in death.  It’s one of the ways we cope with a subject we’d rather avoid.  We don’t like to think about the end of this life—even if we expect a better one afterwards.  Still, we know we must face death.  That’s why we buy life insurance and make wills, so that our loved ones will be taken care of after we are gone.

            George Hood says, “Death has a way of interrupting our lives.”  Amen to that!  The Latin phrase, Media vita in morte sumus translates, “In the midst of life we are in death.”  We know we can’t escape death.  It will come when it will come.  Nothing we can do will prepare us or our loved ones completely for our death.  Also, we know there’s nothing sure but death and taxes.  The worst part of that is that even after our death someone has to pay the taxes.

            There are books written about death.  Movies have been made about the subject.  Plays have been written.  You name it—every genre of literature, fiction or non-fiction, has dealt with the subject.  After all that has been written—all that has been said—we are no nearer being able to face death and cope with it than we have ever been.

            Those of us who claim the name Christian believe that death is not the end, but the beginning.  As Evangeline Booth said, “When our days are gone we’ll find death is not night at all, but breaking sun.”  I believe she was referencing Dylan Thomas’s poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night when she referred to death as not the beginning of night but rather the beginning of a new day.

            Christians believe that we will spend eternity with God in heaven, and that life will be lived in a never-ending, cloudless day.  Although Revelation 21 sounds as if it describes the afterlife occurring on a regenerated, restored earth, that doesn’t change the picture of unending day uninterrupted by any darkness.  We will need no sun or electric lights, because God will be our light.

            We have Jesus’ word on the subject.  In his final discourse to his disciples, on the night before his execution, he said that he was going to prepare a place for them and that he would come again and take them there.  Because we are Christ’s disciples, we claim that promise for ourselves.  Jesus will return at some undetermined time in the future.  If we are still alive he will take us to live with him and with God.  If we have died, he will call us from our graves to go with him (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).

            Of course, what we hope for is that we will be united with God and reunited with our loved ones who have gone on before immediately after death, but the Bible does not seem to promise that.  Whatever happens, we believe death is not the end, not to be feared, and not to be worried about.  Our future—an unending day—is assured.