Talking about death

30th July 2023

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

… people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.  Hebrews 9:27 (NIV)

Talking about Death
There are many fine moments in the new Barbie film.  Perhaps the most striking is when Barbie is chattering away and asks her friends (also called Barbie), “Have you thought about dying?” (or something like that.  And there is total, stunned silence for several seconds.  They are literally speechless.  In Barbieland, every day is the best day, so even to raise the topic of death is unthinkable.

It reminds me of something the evangelist John Chapman used to say: “If you want to bring a dinner party to a crashing, grinding halt simply lean over to your host and ask, ‘Have you given any thought to your death lately?’”  That scene in the Barbie film was a vivid demonstration of that.

Interestingly, in another film out this week, Oppenheimer, telling the story of the physicist in charge of the development of atomic weapons in the US during World War II, when the first weapon was detonated, Oppenheimer famously quotes from the Hindu scripture the Bhagavid Gita, saying, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” (although apparently those words may not mean what we think they mean).  It seems, whether we like it or not, we cannot avoid talking about death.

Why are people so reluctant to talk about death?  I suppose the obvious answer is that most people don’t have an answer to death.  We may be able to delay it, but we cannot prevent it or avoid it, and every single one of us will die one day (unless the Lord returns first).  Our powerlessness before death, together with its certainty, is enough to silence most of us.  Talking about it merely serves to emphasise those realities.

As Christians, though, we ought to be able to talk about death and to face it with confidence, and so to prepare for it carefully.  After all, we know the One who has defeated death and borne for us the judgment that will follow, who says, “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” and “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 11:25-26, 5:24).

Father, thank you that in Jesus we have the answer to death, and so we can face it calmly and confidently; help us to prepare well for it.  Amen.

Yours warmly, in Christ,

Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)