Death and Life: A lesson from the pandemic
She suffered a cardiac arrest and could have died. But thanks to the amazing skill and determination of one consultant and a brilliant team, my friend survived. People ask her, ‘What was it like being dead, did you see anything?’ She replies, ‘I felt safe – nothing else.’ The benefit of really professional medical care means that we have now become unfamiliar with death. We might be well on in adulthood before a family member dies, and even then the process is very carefully managed.
So there is now a massive impact on our emotional lives in facing the daily tally of death we have been unable to prevent in people of every age and circumstances. Suddenly we have to face our own death.
The absence of Christian faith in popular culture means that there is now not common understanding or story about life after death that we trust. So perhaps this is a time to re-examine why Christians still find peace and hope and joy in life beyond death.
Christian faith asserts that no one is without value because every person is made and loved by God. Death is not the end of this love; it is the beginning of a way to perfect our best selves.
Christians believe this because we believe that Jesus rose from the dead on the first Easter Day. We do not know how or when our resurrection will happen and so we describe death as like sleep.
Life for those who have died is like that bliss that you know when you have been in pain and unable to sleep. This is when you know you are safe and can give in to deep and restful sleep.
Like sleep in our lifetime, this is when we renew our energy, just as for the young it’s when we do our growing. It’s when our mind unravels itself in our dreams. It’s when the person who shares our life is close to us.
The Christian faith then describes resurrection as like waking to a new and amazing day, when all our life and love are perfected and we see God face to face
So my prayer for those you have known and loved, for every victim of this Coronavirus pandemic who has died alone and who has no one else’s prayers, is simply this: May you rest in peace and rise again into the glory of heaven.