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Of course, we believe in death and resurrection. But who of us has a faith so dynamic that we willingly embrace the experience of death? Death is an enemy. Many of us are weary of the journey. Like the apostle Paul, we would gladly leave this mortal body and exchange it for a glorified body. But we are like the dear sister whose memorial said, "Long she had pled for release." One of her caretakers, smiling, reminded people that the sister was still quick to call the doctor when something wasn't quite right.
What stashes of prescription drugs some of us have! We don't act like we want release from this life. The stewardship of our bodies keeps us trying to postpone death. In my 50 years in the ministry, I have conducted and witnessed many funerals. They were always sad occasions. Death is always an uninvited guest.
I tell my pastor I enjoy his sermons, but my real Sunday meat and potatoes are found in our senior men's Sunday school class. We are a motley group. Several are in their 90s. We are far from well physically. There are heart problems and pacemakers. Old memories of being a prisoner of war still haunt a brother and cause depression. We pray for a companion who lives with Alzheimer's. A brother had a hip replaced. One has been healed of cancer.
Instead of barging into the Bible lesson, the teacher takes time for each of us to share. The trite question "How are you?" is for real. We share and listen. We cry. We lay hands on the weeping brother. The God who "gives endurance and encouragement" (Romans 15:5) is there, and we take heart.
Some years ago, one of our number battled leukemia. He spent more than $50,000 and stayed four weeks in the hospital. He got well. But, after a year, the ugly disease returned. He brought his problem to the class and to the congregation. After prayer and consultation, he decided not to repeat the painful and expensive hospital procedure. He died after a few months at age 75. He was an inspiration to us all. Yes, we believe in death and resurrection.
About six weeks before Christmas, depression came along. Churchill called depression his "black dog". I dealt with the black dog. I chose to make, of all things, my own casket.
My older sister said, "That's creepy." I replied, "I build grandfather clocks, and I'm not afraid of time."
By Christmas, I had it finished. The children were home, and to some it was a surprise, but they all affirmed me. The casket was fun to make, and my depression was gone.
It's not just a pine box with a flat lid. It’s made of poplar, birch and stained walnut. It has moulding and a designed top.
Responses to it are interesting. Some think I'm weird. In my opinion, it's weird to pay $10,000 for a casket and then put it under ground.
A dear brother had a more positive reaction. "Hallelujah!" he said. "You looked the rat straight in the eye and didn't blink. You're not afraid of death."
"He passed away," we say, but it's not true. We might say, "He passed on," but never "away".
Death is not ceasing to exist; it is beginning to live. It is not going away; it is arriving. A ship leaves shore and goes over the horizon, and someone says, "There it goes." They forget that on the other side someone says, "Here it comes."
This violent planet will not end in a whimper. Like an old carpet, God will weave it anew. The lion, the ox, the wolf and the lamb will share the pasture. One day, as Malachi says, we will "leap like calves released from the stall" (Malachi 4:2). Old age and all the other stresses of life are nothing compared to the next step. God will, in God's own time, create for us an incredible world of wonder and beauty. Go ahead, live to be 100, get good health care but remember this short vale of tears is but a swatch of time in the great eons of eternity.
Moses Slabaugh, a retired pastor and editor, lives in a Mennonite retirement centre in Harrisonburg, Va. This article is reprinted, with permission, from the Aug. 30, 1994 issue of Gospel Herald.
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