Every true story,” Ernest Hemingway said, “ends in death.” No one knows that better than my friend Sue, who works in hospice care and whom I reckon a modern saint. She spends her days assisting people as they attempt to fill the final pages of their stories with meaning.
In the case of her clients, medical science provides the ironic benefit of identifying precisely what will rob them of existence, while at the same time confirming the lack of any known remedy. In some cases, medication or other treatment may ease the physical pain or delay the end. No human treatment can postpone it indefinitely.
Hospice care, of course, represents a gentle alternative, available to only the few in relatively prosperous circumstances. Most of the teeming millions who die each year cannot afford this compassionate option. Many will die suddenly, without warning, their stories unfinished, ending in midsentence. Many, far too many, will die of starvation, torture, or frightful diseases, their narratives simply trailing off. Yet each story will share Hemingway’s predicted ending: death.
is life a cruel joke?
At best, however, we all live in a hospice setting. From our first breath, we begin to form attachments with individuals whom we will watch—or who will watch us—weaken and die. The libraries of our memories fill up with biographies at all stages of development, but all end in silence.
We perceive the sweetness of life and cling to existence in spite of suffering, grief, and discouragement. The same consciousness that allows us to enjoy the exhilaration of existence also confronts us with the reality that we must relinquish both existence and consciousness.
We barely reach maturity and experience our full physical and mental powers before they begin to wane. When death tarries, the passing years loosen our grip on life as aging robs us of vitality and ability. Even as our powers decline, we remain painfully aware of our losses. Worse, the longer we live, the more we witness the physical and mental decline and death of others close to us. Life is sweet, but the longer we live, the more suffering we experience, both personally and vicariously.
This cruel reality provokes many to anger. The poet Dylan Thomas urged us not to “go gentle into that good night,” and to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.”1 Singer Peggy Lee plaintively asked, “Is that all there is?” while an old spiritual inquires, “And am I born to die?”
The Bible writers also address this sad dilemma of existence. “Our days may come to seventy years, / or eighty, if our strength endures; / yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow” (Psalm 90:10). “Mortals, born of woman / are of few days and full of trouble. / They spring up like flowers and wither away; / like fleeting shadows, they do not endure” (Job 14:1, 2).
Unless we can hope to regain life in some happier future, the power that endows us with life must be either cruel or indifferent. Is it not cruel to give us a taste of such delight and then torment us with the realization that it must pass so quickly and be gone forever? Even the biblical preacher2 complained, “I declared that the dead, / who had already died, / are happier than the living, / who are still alive” (Ecclesiastes 4:2). Repeatedly, he tells us that life is emptiness—reason enough to rage or despair.
Jesus’ declaration of hope
God responded to this desperate situation by sending His Son. John records Jesus’ ringing declaration of hope “ ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies’ ” (John 11:25). The light that shines from Christ’s empty tomb brightens our whole lives, especially the final hours. No matter how difficult our days, how great our suffering, how short the span of our lives, we can face death with hope. Our personal story may conclude with death, but the Resurrection offers the promise of an epilogue, of pages yet to be added and filled. Because of the Resurrection, “never again will death have the last word” (Romans 6:9, The Message3).
How many, though, have lived out their brief tale in the 2,000 years since the Resurrection? How many generations have had their births and deaths chronicled in family Bibles and recorded in dusty church registers? How many have faced the end of their story in torment, without understanding, without hope? The Resurrection offers great hope, yet the sum of human misery keeps mounting with each passing day.
On this planet of the condemned, the gospel offers hospice, the opportunity to live out our days in dignity; but still they must end. My friend offers comfort and care to her clients but not escape. At best, death may tarry, death may tread gently—but it will come. The final pages of our lives may glow with hope, but the tale must end.
All this continual suffering and death fuels the fires of cynicism. People reasonably ask how a God of infinite goodness can countenance the continued existence of so much pain, the death of so many innocents. The Resurrection offers hope, but death still stalks the land. If God can loosen death’s grip, why doesn’t He eliminate it altogether?
God has a plan to do just that. Before the Resurrection, even before the Crucifixion, Christ assured the disciples that He would not leave the conquest of death half done. “ ‘I will come back,’ ” He said (John 14:3). And as soon as Jesus disappeared into the clouds at the Ascension, angels assured the apostles, “ ‘This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven’ ” (Acts 1:11). He’s coming back to finish off sin and death.
no more goodbyes
With the First Advent, Christ defeated death; at the Second Advent, He will destroy death! The First Advent gave hope to the suffering and dying; the Second Advent eliminates suffering and death. At the First Advent, Christ came to share our suffering and even our dying; at the Second Advent, He comes so that we can share His life!
“The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). On the cross, Jesus accepted those wages for all who trust in Him. But those who reject Him must receive payment. Satan has been piling up “earnings” for a long time in heaven’s ledger. Jesus will settle that long overdue account when the lake of fire consumes Satan. And then, with all accounts settled, death and hell will be “thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). So it will be that “the last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).
With sin eradicated and death destroyed, God “ ‘will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
No more Earth as a place of hospice. No more waiting for death. No more grieving for lost loved ones.
No more goodbyes.
Ed Dickerson is a regular contributor to Signs of the Times®. He writes from Iowa.
1. Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” in The Poems of Dylan Thomas, ed. Daniel Jones (New York: New Directions Publishing, 2003), 239.
