{"id":6202,"date":"2022-09-02T22:04:03","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T22:04:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=6202"},"modified":"2022-09-30T21:35:11","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T21:35:11","slug":"needing-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/02\/needing-to-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Needing to Die"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Needing to Die<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Knowing you\u2019re going to die can be a gift.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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By Alex Sosler
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In the first thirty years of my life, I remember going to two funerals. Neither of the deceased meant much to me\u2014the grandfather of a friend and the mother of a coach. These weren\u2019t people I knew. I didn\u2019t feel much. I mostly just felt like I should be thankful for the lack of death in my life\u2014in many ways, my life lacked a loss that others acutely knew.<\/p>

In the past year, I\u2019ve been to six funerals. Each one of them of them hurt<\/em>. This also means that my three children under six have each been to three times as many funerals in their young lives as I had been to in three decades.<\/p>

I mourned this fact. After a string of these deaths, I sat on my living room floor weeping in front of my children. My sweet daughter came and put her hand on me. After a few minutes of my ugly crying, she spoke up: \u201cThat\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve seen you cry, daddy.\u201d It was. And I was a little embarrassed\u2014I felt so exposed in front of my children, to whom I am meant to be a pillar of strength and comfort. Yet did not even Jesus weep when he learned of the death of his friend Lazarus, and witnessed the grief of Lazarus\u2019s sisters? As hard as it was, it was right for me to weep when I did, and for my children to see it, too.<\/p>

Damn<\/em> death. I did not want to help with a service that mourned the death of a three-month-old. I did not want to attend the funeral of my best friend\u2019s one-day-old. I didn\u2019t want to explain to my kids that we don\u2019t ask her where the baby in her tummy went, or why Mrs. Daphne from church can\u2019t bring olives over for you on Thursday nights anymore. I didn\u2019t want to lose my grandmother. And I also ache over the fact that the people I love and cherish are in pain.<\/p>

Yet as I saw my children grapple with death, I saw something other than only pain and loss at work in their small souls and bodies. Though I have decades of life experience on them, they are now more acquainted than death than I was until this year. Their experiences of loss and mourning have offered them a peek into life and death, and into love and loss. They are learning to remember that people die\u2014and that they themselves will someday die. And perhaps most importantly, we are teaching them that death is not the end.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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If we can\u2019t look to a life after death, that means all our meaning and value must belong exclusively to life.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Modern men and women have a staggering optimism when it comes to death. We think if we put out good vibes, good things will come our way. We think we can outwork, outsmart, and outlive death. And because we see ourselves as immortal, we can\u2019t face the truth. True life, we think, is avoiding the negatives at all costs. Suffering is a mere bump in the road of our otherwise healthy and happy lives. And death is what happens to other people, not to us. Never to us. As Eliot would put it, \u201cNot that final meeting in the twilight kingdom.\u201d Better anything than that.<\/p>

Instead, we have transhumanism, which sees death as a problem to be solved rather than a reality to be reckoned with. Google has a team of scientists and researchers trying to \u201csolve\u201d the problem of death\u2014finding ways to extend life and avoid death\u2014maybe forever. Because if we can\u2019t look to a life after death, that means all our meaning and value must belong exclusively to life. In this framework, to accept the reality of death would be to deny human value and dignity. And when the inevitable happens, all we can do is turn our faces away.<\/p>

Even churches have jumped on this bandwagon of life, life, life. No longer are churches built with graveyards in the front, a weekly reminder of gathering with the saints gone before us. (To attend such a church is a personal dream of mine.) Our funerals are now almost always billed as \u201cCelebrations of Life\u201d\u2014as if the death is just an afterthought. And from week to week, the focus of our services is on your best life now!<\/em>\u2014four steps to a meaningful life, or three steps to a better marriage. As if Jesus were a means to your present happiness and wellbeing.<\/p>

Church, however, is (or ought to be) the place where we learn to die.<\/p>

In Dying Unto Life<\/em>, the late theologian Arthur McGill of Harvard Divinity School argues that the thing that death reveals is our basic neediness. He writes,<\/p>

Death simply shows the essential emptiness of the creature wherein he depends upon God for all his being. Death discloses the extent of having\u2014its total vacuity. Death is therefore that neediness in which children of God always stand in relation to their Father. Death is the disclosure of yawning need.<\/p><\/blockquote>

And we\u2014I\u2019ll speak for Americans especially, since I am one\u2014don\u2019t like to be needy. When we\u2019re taught from childhood that we should strive to be independent and self-sufficient, death comes as this terrible reminder that we are far more dependent, more in need<\/em>, than we like to admit. But death really shouldn\u2019t come as such a shock to us. Especially to Christians. As the old hymn puts it, \u201cWe blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree \/ And wither and perish, but naught changes thee.\u201d To be human is to be finite. Only God can bear the burden of infinity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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When we put too much stock in independence and self-sufficiency, the Gospel comes to reorder us.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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So often, I fall into the trap of conflating maturity with self-sufficiency. I find myself thinking that if I want to be mature in Christ, I should be helping others, rather than asking for help. I need a sense of independence, I tell myself. Rather than burdening God with my needs or insecurities, I should be handling those things on my own. Rather than depending on others, I should be an autonomous individual who hands out the assistance that those weaker than me still require.<\/p>

Likewise, my fatherly instinct tells me that my kids shouldn\u2019t need. Or rather, my kids shouldn\u2019t hurt. And they shouldn\u2019t have to see me hurt, either, because that hurts and endangers them. And if I got to this mature point I\u2019m dreaming of, maybe I would receive something from God, so that I would be less dependent on Him. Less in need of Him. Maybe it\u2019s my Type-A personality or my maleness or my Americanness that refuses to ask for help or admit need\u2014or maybe it\u2019s just my human nature. But I know I continue to long for strength, for maturity, and for freedom from need.<\/p>

And I can<\/em> live like this. You can, too. But neither of us will be ready for death. We\u2019ll avoid thinking about it. We\u2019ll fear it. When it comes for the people around us, we won\u2019t be able to look it in the face.<\/p>

But it also doesn\u2019t have<\/em> to be this way. When we put too much stock in independence and self-sufficiency, the Gospel comes to reorder us. It teaches us that maturity shows up not in autonomy, but in need. Not in our ability to never think of our impending death, but in our ability to stand face to face with it every day.<\/p>

And this is the story that the Bible tells, all through humanity\u2019s long ages. When Adam and Eve were placed in the garden of paradise, they had everything provided for them. They had community with each other and perfect communion with God. They had gardens of food and water flowing, sufficient to everything they needed. Yet they failed to depend on the source of their life and instead relied on themselves and a serpent. They were all-too-easily convinced that their need was self-made rather than a gift.<\/p>

We see the same tale again when the nation of Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They were in need\u2014of protection, of food, of security, of a plan. And God sustained them with manna every day. And their clothes never wore out. Moses instructed them to take care lest they forget\u2014that once they reached the promised land and things came a bit easier, when they had eaten their fill and built houses to live in\u2014take care to not forget God and your neediness in the desert. This is all a gift.<\/p>

In the Gospels, Jesus, too, was driven to the wilderness, this time for forty days. He was not fed by God, like the Israelites. He had no companion, like Adam and Eve. And another serpent slithered along to see what he could get away with. He started with what he thought Jesus most needed.<\/p>

Jesus was hungry, and the tempter offered him bread. And there\u2019s nothing wrong with bread, right? Jesus eats bread both before and after his time in the wilderness. But he refuses this meal. He chooses need over the offer of fulfillment. Next, the devil takes Jesus to a high hilltop and offers him authority and glory, and then to the pinnacle of the temple, where he suggests that Jesus should prove that the Father will protect him. Jesus resists each suggestion. He refuses to secure his position as independent and without need.<\/p>

As the rest of the Gospels show, Jesus\u2019 entire earthly existence was characterized by need and dependence. His life is an example of willing neediness and trust that the Father will supply every need. He does what the Father instructs him. He goes where the Father tells him to go. He says what the Father tells him to say. He has agency, but he chooses to act in complete dependence and obedience. The Son of God, the supreme being of the universe, was needy. He understood that this was the better way.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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We mortal, finite creatures are creatures of need\u2014each and every one of us.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The death of Jesus\u2014the Son of God\u2019s moment of most abject need\u2014is the center of the Christian life. And indeed, mortality itself means neediness. Arthur McGill writes,<\/p>

To live for oneself, by oneself, on the basis of what is one\u2019s own is therefore not to be alive with a vitality grounded in God. This is to be alive with a phony life, a sterile life, a life that must finally dry up from inside itself, and a life that will, in an effort to forestall its own inner drying up, work to seize nourishment from others. It is necessarily a heartless life.<\/p><\/blockquote>

A life of independence, in other worlds, is not a life at all. To be independent is to be, in a sense, already dead.<\/p>

But what does that mean? It means that when we receive from God, we are grateful\u2014but not as for the other things that we receive in life. Typically, to say that your needs have been met means that the need in question vanishes. You were hungry, and someone (perhaps your mother) gave you food. Your need was met, and you were no longer in need of a snack. You were poor, but an employer hired you and started giving you a paycheck, and you are grateful, because you no longer need money. Given food, we feed ourselves. Given money, we support ourselves. But God\u2019s gifts to us are not like this, and we are not grateful to Him for reasons like these.<\/p>

That is not to say that I need need<\/em>. It\u2019s that my need is true. I am a creature dependent on the Creator. When I try to live as if I am not needy, that is the lie. It is not real.<\/p>

Giving thanks is a constant in the Christian life. And the thing we are grateful for is our continual neediness. For our continued ability to give thanks. God does not give us of Himself so we can own or control or possess what we have. And He doesn\u2019t give that way to be withholding. He does it because that would be a phony life. A life grounded in your own life rather than the life of God is less than what you need.<\/p>

In his poem \u201cThe Pulley<\/a>,\u201d George Herbert imagined the scene of God creating humanity and pouring out good things on his creation. But then He pauses\u2014and He decides not to bestow the last of his gifts, rest:<\/p>

\u201cFor if I should,\u201d said he,<\/p>

\u201cBestow this jewel also on my creature,<\/p>

He would adore my gifts instead of me,<\/p>

And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature;<\/p>

So both should losers be.<\/p>

When I come to realize my need\u2014either by willing choice or by that realization being thrust upon me (and mortality is a willing teacher)\u2014I can open myself up for what God has to give me. But as long as I remain under the illusion of self-sufficiency, I remain closed off to the Giving God. We mortal, finite creatures are creatures of need\u2014each and every one of us. The solution to need is not independence but surrender to the reality of our neediness. Herbert\u2019s point here is the same as Moses\u2019\u2014need, too, is a gift.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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We do not celebrate death, but we can still be grateful for the gift of need.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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My kids are quite young, and they may not remember the funerals they have attended in their early life. But they\u2019ve nevertheless been catechized in a way that I was not. They have experienced loss and learned something of how to mourn with those who mourn. They have seen the pain of death, its unnaturalness to us humans who, being mortal, by nature\u2019s lights should expect nothing more. Being broken up and disrupted by these losses, they can learn to let others in. To be dependent on their family and their community. To acknowledge their absolute need before God. We do not celebrate death, but we can still be grateful for the gift of need. Realizing their need, my children can live into the truth about themselves: that from the day they were born, they were taken from dust, and to dust they shall return. I pray that this memento mori<\/em> will be imprinted on their hearts. Then they, even better than I, will know how to live.<\/p>

Because the seed must be planted in the earth before it can grow. The wages of sin are death\u2014but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ, who died for us. And this enchanted dust will rise again, into the arms of the God who is ready to meet our every need\u2014with more of Himself.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Alex Sosler<\/strong> is Assistant Professor of Bible and Ministry at Montreat College, Assisting Priest at Redeemer Anglican Church, husband to Lauren, and dad to Mariela, Auden, and Jude. He is author of two upcoming books: <\/em>Love as Learning: Christian Higher Education as Pilgrimage (Falls City Press) and <\/em>Theology and the Avett Brothers (Fortress\/Lexington).<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowing you\u2019re going to die can be a gift. By Alex 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