Glancing Thoughts

Death

The Gospel reading this week is focused on death. In the gospel reading, Jesus tells his disciples not to be afraid of those who can kill them. Those people are not to be feared, because death itself is not to be feared.

No doubt, there is always something sorrowful about dying, because death separates the dying person from his family and his friends; and they still have to slog through their lives in this world without their companion. But Jesus is not telling people to accept death without sorrow. He is telling them not to fear death.

If you were walking alone down a dark street late at night, and you saw a small knot of strangers gathered menacingly at a corner, wouldn’t you be afraid? Shouldn’t you be afraid? If the cancer doctor tells you that you have only months to live, wouldn’t you—shouldn’t you—be afraid?

How can Jesus tell us, actually, commands us not to be afraid of death?

Well, think about it this way. If you are surprised when you discover that you are dying, you just haven’t been paying attention. None of us is getting out of this alive. Everyone of us will die. It is just a question of when. Or maybe better: it is just a question of how.

Here is how it will be if you love the Lord. In dying, you will move through the veil that separates you, in this world of sorrow and suffering, from the Lord’s own presence. There, on the other side, you will find all tears wiped away—the tears you have already wept and the ones that are stuck in your heart right now. All those tears will be wiped away by your Creator with a tenderness so great that you will think you must be dreaming. The beauty and the goodness of that new world will surpass your every desire. And you yourself will be something lovelier than you ever imagined you could be. Surrounded by beauty and goodness, bathed in the love of the Lord, transformed, yourself, in the beauty of holiness, you will join the angels in singing for joy at what the Lord has done.

Are you afraid now? Is this scary to you?

What is worth fearing is losing all of this beauty and goodness on the other side of death because you will not now surrender to the love of the Lord who calls you to himself. But this is a kind of death that comes only from sin, as the Second Reading says. No one else can force it on you; only you can cause this death in yourself.

And that is why the Lord tells his disciples not to fear those who can kill the body.

Eleonore Stump
 

**From Saint Louis University