you will die

Many weeks ago, I attended the funeral service of a young woman who I had very briefly known. She was a good friend to some close friends, and I accompanied them to pay their last respects. My experience at the funeral service, however, stayed with me for many days to come, as I mulled over the words the pastor shared during the memorial.

For one, his sermon was very straight talking, in some ways, too straight talking, I felt, especially for individuals mourning the sudden demise of a loved one. “Are you ready to die?” He asked the congregation. “Are you ready to die too soon? You will die.” He discussed theology that I had never considered before, stating that we remain in a sort of unconscious limbo until Christ’s return. We don’t go to heaven immediately. We ‘sleep’ till then. “When Christ returns and she is resurrected,” he said of the deceased, “that’s when we’ll tell her that she had died.” We do not know that we have died when we die, unlike what the go-to-heaven-upon-death viewpoint would suggest.

I was shocked when I heard what this particular pastor said, and whispered to my friend that I did not believe in his theology. “What of Moses and Elijah who appeared to Jesus during the Transfiguration?” I asked. Moved to confirm my own opinion, I would later read online that Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus because nowhere in the Bible do we find solid evidence that they had died! The Torah concludes that God buried Moses. Elijah ascended to God in a chariot of fire. What of us millennial believers who die from cancer and accidents and wars?

I have never thought much of what will become of me after I die. I describe the rest as a new dimension with God, one that I cannot grasp when my soul is still trapped in my body. I’m reluctant to believe in the we-will-all-have-mansions and streets-of-gold theologies. I want to believe that there’s much more to God’s unseen kingdom than materialism or our humanly definitions of a good life.

Whatever beliefs I had however were no comfort to me, when the pastor’s message and my own befuddled thoughts on the hereafter thrust me into a complete awareness of my own mortality; the unassailable fact that on one unknown day, I will die. The thoughts that coursed through me day after day instilled a disappointment in the reason for existence. What is the point of living if it will all end? What’s the point of getting this education if time will cut my life short? What is the duration of existence of the families we so desire? I was beginning to understand what Solomon meant when he raved that all is meaningless.

I would mumble to confused friends about this dreaded mortality, and all would rightly point out the futility of spending my energy worrying. Still, none would assuage my worry. I realized that I had attended several memorial services and grieved over the death of a loved one, yet I had never truly imagined that I would also lie in a coffin. In my mind, “Goodbye love, I will see you on the other shore” had never merged with “My heart will stop beating one day too.”

The ache in my heart would gradually dissipate following an unexpected comforting message. It was a verse I have not read much. A verse that reminded me how my life is part of a divine quilted framework. How it’s more that what my education or my writing could achieve. More than my breathing. It didn’t answer everything, but it would give me a bedrock of God’s word on which I could surrender my anxieties. I had reacquainted myself with Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

I have a set of good works that God has set out for me to complete. I can only forge a bearable existence if I busy myself with the completion of these good words, as I leave the rest for my creator to unravel, including the architecture of our debut rendezvous.

You will die. I will die.

But the contemplation of own demise no longer unhinges me.