“So God’s not real! Because He didn’t make him better!”
Inside, my heart fell. I had been expecting this. This was from a student that constantly asks all the hard questions to everything spiritual, from why you bow you head to pray, to the fact that her grandmother told her that Thai people die for switching religions from Buddhism.
“No.” I said, quiet. “No, that’s not true.”
Rewind a little over a month.
One of my co-workers had been sick with a heart condition last year but had gotten better enough to be released from the hospital and had seemed fine. In November, he had gone back to the hospital. It was clearly a fight for his life. The school prayed, as hard as anyone ever does.
On Thursday night, admin sent out an email that he had passed away, leaving behind a wife and three kids.
We had a letter to read to the students on Friday, telling them what happened. There were mixed reactions all around. Some accepted it. One of my students just said “so he’s in Heaven”, and let it go. Some were more confused.
I tried to answer them as best I could. I said that God sometimes doesn’t make us better on earth, but in Heaven. It doesn’t mean He isn’t real, or that prayer doesn’t work. It just mean’s He’s smarter than us. That He has another plan.
I don’t know if my words made a difference. It’s hard, with a language barrier and a culture barrier, to explain some things.
Later that day, I was sobbing about the gulf of questions from my students I felt ill-equipped to answer.
And I heard a gentle Voice say, “My love is stronger than their anger and confusion.”
As Christians, there is a fear and a real possibility that people will use death as an excuse to push away God.
When I was 12, one of my best friends died after complications with Cystic Fibrosis (a lung disease). It shattered my world. Before that, dying was for old people who had lived a full life. Before that, if you prayed hard enough for something (I thought) God was obligated to give it to you. Isn’t that what happened in the Bible? The sick healed and the dead raised? So why wasn’t it happening now? Was there something wrong with my faith?
Twelve years later, I now know that faith is a gift (Romans 12:3). I know that God is smarter than me, even when He answers my prayers with “no”. And I know that hard things don’t mean that God is far away or not real. They mean that He is closer than I ever dreamed.
Most of all, I know that He is still good. It’s the world that isn’t.
Another one of my students asked, “If Mr. Daryll was a nice teacher and really good, why did he die?”
Ah, yes, the age-old “why do bad things happen to good people?” question.
In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis talks about us living in enemy-occupied territory. The devil is still the “prince of the air”. The world is screwed over by sin and nothing like it was intended to be in the beginning. Jesus came to earth to begin the process of setting things right. But it will not be finished in our lifetimes. And in the meantime, there is still suffering, and sin, and yes, death.
The verses that have been running around in my head these last two days are in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. Verse 13 is the one I always remember whenever I am faced with death in my life:
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”
Death sucks. One of my favorite images from the Gospels is Jesus weeping at the tomb of Lazarus, His friend. God knows better than anyone that death is the greatest crack in our fallen world. Grief is good, and it is good to mourn. BUT, when Christians mourn for other Christians, there is a difference.
We say goodbye, but not forever.
“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”
“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” And I can’t wait for that day. But until then, I want to show the world what it means to mourn well. To care for those left behind well. To let my students see that all the things their teachers tell them about God aren’t just true in the good times, but in the bad times, too.
I’ll close this with a poem that I wrote three years ago. I think it does as good a job as anything at summing up my thoughts on death, and what it means as a Christian to deal with it:
I hate death
I hate it
I hate the way it takes
And takes,
And takes
I hate the hole it leaves
The silence where a voice should be
The endless list of never-to-knows
All the stories never told
Someone’s suffering is ended
Ours begins
I hate death
I hate it
I hate the way it takes
And takes,
And takes
I hate the aching chest
Constricted throat
Wet face
A soul; red, raw, and scraped
So I went to the Master of life and death
The one who inhabits eternity
And I said, “Oh Lord, my God,
I hate death.”
“When oh when will this suffering end?”
And the Master reached down
To wipe the tears out of my eyes
And He said
“My child, I hate it, too.”
“So do you know what I have done?”
“I died.”
“I took on the pain, the loneliness, the shame
The wrongs and evil of all who will be or who came
And I died.”
“But then…
Then I rose.
For I am God and none can hold me.
And if you come to me, I will make you an heir
To this legacy of victory.”
“My love, my little one
I hate death more than you ever could.
So I killed it.”
I killed death
I killed it.
I killed the way it takes
And takes,
And takes
I killed the hole it leaves
The silence where a voice should be
The endless list of never-to-knows
All the stories never told
Because resurrection is a promise
And the world to come is a reality
And yes, on this earth,
I know there is still
The aching chest
Constricted throat
Wet face
A soul; red, raw, and scraped
But listen, my beloved
This end is not the end.”
Teach; Think; Write. 