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| Autumn approaches the Furness Peninsula |
Autumn comes: I feel the crisp bite of cold in the air, and see the bracken on the hills and some of the trees beginning to brown. In our garden, the sugar snap peas have long slowed their production, and the vines are drooping and yellowing, soon to be pulled up and thrown into the compost bin.
Autumn is usually a season when I think of death to a small degree, but even more so this year. I was recently telling someone about how the coronavirus has highlighted to me my own mortality. For most of my life I've known that I will die, but it's easy to push that thought aside, distracted by daily business, entertainment and other things. However, reading news reports about rising infection rates and death tolls and seeing photographs of people of all ages and fitness levels in hospital beds connected to ventilators has reminded me of how I could just as well be in their position, and that at some point death waits for us all, whether or not we're ready for it or expecting it.
I don't think I have thought about death this much since middle school. At one point, I was ill for several weeks, and while at home recovering, I thought much about death -- my own and that of my loved ones -- which caused prolonged sadness. After I recovered, I didn't think about death as often (partly because I had other things going on, like being at school rather than at home alone), but at times the weight of fear and sorrow would return.
The summer of my first year of high school, I grew deeply in my faith in Christ, and I learned much about God through praying and reading the Bible. That summer marked a turning point for me in many ways, one of which was that I was filled with joy and hope. I had my low days, but never like those weeks in middle school when I was ill and some time afterwards, when the fear of death preoccupied me. I still knew that death was coming, but I no longer dreaded it because I also knew that Christ was with me.
The Letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus shared in our humanity 'so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death -- that is, the devil -- and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death' (2:14-15).
To some degree, this describes what I experienced. During those middle-school years, I was in bondage to my fear of death, but this changed when I understood that Christ conquered death by dying and rising from the dead, pioneering the way for those who follow him to our own resurrection after we die.
However, I am aware that, while I have confronted my fear of death, I have not yet faced death itself. In these days of the pandemic, thinking about death more often, I ask myself how truly I do trust in Christ to save us from death, to meet us on the other side. When death is staring me in the face, will my faith in Christ be firm? Will I be afraid then?
I want to be like the saints and martyrs who bravely stood firm in their faith, even when it meant they would be executed, who in some cases welcomed death because they considered it an honour to suffer for Christ's sake, knowing it would unite them with him. I believe that for such Christians, while death has been something to both acknowledge and respect, by the power of the Holy Spirit, it has not been something to fear.
Jesus says, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it' (Luke 9:23-24).
Following Jesus, therefore, means dying small deaths every day so that we may partake of his life. This little dying is like practising for our physical death. It means turning away from our selves, our passions and our sins, and turning towards God. Paradoxically, it is only in losing ourselves like this that we are found in God, restored to our full humanity, fully alive.
That first summer of high school, I let go of who I thought I was at the time and discovered that I was becoming a new person in Christ -- a truer version of myself, this time not burdened by fear. This process has continued ever since, one in which I am coming closer to the truth about myself and about Christ.
When I take the time to sit quietly, shedding distractions, I realise that it is my deepest desire to meet with Christ because he is my life, a life that is stronger than death.
This, I think, is what St Simeon experienced when he met Jesus. Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before seeing the Messiah. At last, he met Jesus as a baby in the temple, and he held Jesus in his arms, praising God in prayer.
Simeon's prayer (with which I end this post) is remembered by Christians in various worship services. When I worked at the Iona Abbey, we would recite his prayer to conclude the Sunday evening quiet service. In the Anglican tradition, his prayer also ends the evensong service, and similarly in the Orthodox Church, it is prayed towards the end of the vespers (evening) service. It is fitting that each of these services takes place at night, since night often symbolises death, but perhaps even more significant that for the Hebrews and the ancient Church, evening marks not the end but the beginning of the day. Although the rest of the world sees death as the end, we who are in Christ face it as the beginning of our life.
Further, that Simeon's prayer concludes worship suggests that in our daily lives, as we die to ourselves, offering our bodies to God as living sacrifices through our worship and service, we too encounter the Messiah.
When I am staring death in the face, and even now as I seek to take up my cross daily so that I may more fully live, I hope to join in Simeon's praise for having found, or rather for having been found in Christ, knowing that through death I will see Christ's own face.
Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all people,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and glory to your people Israel.
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