death – God Bible Life

Mary and the Sword

The angel appeared to Mary with good news – a baby boy, he will be great, a king, his kingdom shall never end. All that joy and hope contained in that tiny human packet, a gift of love, nurtured by love and the grown man giving himself in love.

And yet, and yet….. What did the priest say to Mary and Joseph as they later held that little baby in their arms in the temple? A sword…. A sword shall pierce your heart… This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”

Is there then to be no love without the sword, piercing the heart? Is there no joy without suffering and loss? Why then do we choose to give ourselves in love? We all know it – the sword is waiting for us too, in various ways, revealing itself as the years turn into decades and the final moments of our lives come.

Would we turn away from love if we could see ahead and sense that sword penetrating our hearts, whilst still in the first flush of love?

And what about the thoughts of our hearts being revealed? Why those uncomfortable ideas of the baby Jesus actually being someone who reveals our hearts and can see into our inmost being? Perhaps Jesus seeing our hearts for what they are and what is contained in them, the good, the bad and the ugly, isn’t something scary or shameful, but simply the first step out of the gloom into light, truth, beauty and order.

But back to the sword – the final word has not yet been spoken… Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O grave, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?

And so, we love. We choose to give ourselves in love and to be loved by others. Come what may and despite the sorrow that comes to all those who love.

In the big scheme of things and in ways we cannot always see or understand, love always endures, love always wins. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love – greater also than the grave, greater than the sword.

The Weeping Man

It was the sound of weeping that woke him. Was he really awake, though? He certainly became aware of lying on his back, in a rather stiff and formal manner, but…. awake? He wasn’t sure yet. He had often had that strange experience of being asleep but dreaming of being awake, and decided that this was what was happening now.

There it was again – weeping. A grown man, weeping, very close by, immediately next to him, quiet, insistent, desolate and disconsolate, like someone who did a lot of weeping. Almost musical in tone, very nearly like singing, it went on in continuous rhythm and was clearly the voice of a man who knew all about sorrows and was acquainted with grief.

But why had he thought the sound was close at hand? It was now certainly further off, coming from outside. But outside of what? All he knew, in that vague and dreamy condition, was that he was inside somewhere and the weeping man was outside. This distinction between his inside and the weeping man’s outside seemed to be important and terribly significant, but it was just another unknown to him in his still dreaming condition. The weeping became louder, rising, step by step, to a tone of outrage and plain anger, reaching something like a terrible shout, a lamentation and even perhaps a war cry – the kind of sound a man would make if he were fighting and defeating an enraged lion or bear with his bare hands. And then…silence.

He continued lying there, closer now to true wakefulness, but still knowing himself to be asleep. Other than that, he didn’t know anything at all, just his dark and enclosed inside and the man who had been weeping outside. He had no idea who he was, what had gone before, no memories of anything at all.

Sound returned, in the vague murmur of other voices, going back and forth, talking in low insistent tones. He thought also that he could discern other wailing and weeping voices, further away, women’s voices perhaps? Then two or three male voices came much closer, until he could almost begin to pick out individual words. Sounds of exertion, grunting and heaving, followed by a brief stab of light which disappeared for a moment, only then to return, and become instantly dazzling, blinding him, despite the fact that he seemed to have some kind of arrangement of cloth over his face.

Then – his name…

The weeping man called out his name…

LAZARUS!

The first piece of returning memory… Lazarus, that’s me, that’s my name. He now felt very close indeed to breaking the surface of the lake of sleep he was still submerged in. The man’s voice continued in a commanding tone, forceful enough to flatten trees a hundred miles away and even knock planets out of their course, but aimed with absolute precision at him and him alone…

COME FORTH!

With that shout, the return of the memory of his own name and then that not to be resisted command COME FORTH! he knew – clearly and indisputably – that he was now fully awake, able, for the first time, to flex muscle and move limbs.

Now that he was properly awake, the knowledge and sensation of being inside in that enclosed space and there being a very clear outside became rather oppressive. COME FORTH, the voice had commanded, so – of course – he obeyed. And that was still all he knew, the entirety of any knowledge he could muster. His name, the sensation of being in that enclosed space and now the command to COME FORTH.. Slowly and carefully he sat up, then stood and began to walk, in slow shuffling gait, towards the light, which he was very clearly aware of, even though he was still effectively blindfolded. There was something outrageous, something that felt as though it should Not Really Be Allowed, something impossible about this action of standing and walking – he didn’t know why that should be. It simply shouldn’t be happening, rather like following the command to walk over a cliff edge, with the assurance from somebody or other that there was an invisible surface to walk on. He was also very dimly aware of a dull and confused racket, perhaps hordes of squealing, hideous voices, a long distance off, gibbering in rage and dismay, very faint but sufficient to frighten him a little, so he advanced his steps towards that light and warmth, and then – he was no longer inside – but outside, out into what he would soon remember to be sunlight and fresh air. For now though, like a baby that had been accidentally born with an adult body, he stood there still knowing and remembering nothing.

Footsteps and voices approached, he became aware of hands, gentle and hesitant, plucking and pulling at the pieces of cloth that had been encumbering his movement. And how they stank! A sweet but sickly smell arose, dark and repulsive, as those filthy rags fell away and his limbs became free to move again, face free and open, eyes still screwed tight shut against that blinding and dazzling light and warmth.

Those same hands gently guided him forwards, into another space that was also inside – but not an oppressive feeling this time, a good, safe and welcoming inside. They stripped him of his garments, and helped him with cleansing and washing. The sickly sweet death smell (as he later realised it was) faded away, and – piece by piece – memory and recognition of his friends, family and events returned, with wonderment, relief, smiles, joy, then eventually shouts and laughter..

The friendly helpers washed themselves too. They felt themselves to be in something of a quandary; had they touched a dead body or not? It felt as though they had, and yet, technically, hadn’t. However, if there was ever a time to not be standing on ceremony, it was clearly now…

Later, after all the spontaneous festivities, singing, laughter, as well as earnest conversation and reflection, were over, he lay down again, and – without fear or apprehension – let himself sink back under the surface. Not the deep and dark waters this time but the caressing, shallow, mild and sunlit waters of God-given sleep and rest.

The Day of my Funeral

It was shortly before dawn, on a perfect summer morning in May. Outside, in the meadow adjoining the orchard, rabbits left dewy trails in the drenched grass, birds sang their deafening chorus, the unstoppable rising flood of light and life rose and swelled with the sunrise, now just starting to send the first stabbing, blinding rays over the edge of the window sill, and straight down onto the bed, where I lay dying.

Yes, my time had come, all too quickly. My illness had followed the typical course of mysterious symptoms, a shocking diagnosis, various courses of treatment, apparent recovery, relapse, and then rapid decline into the condition where life is all about simply gathering strength for the next tight and agonising breath. From my last year, I had reached my last month, the last week, the last day, hour and minute, and now there was not the strength left to draw the next breath, and so, dazzled and all but blinded by the risen sun, I simply stopped breathing, my heart stopped pumping, and my life was over.

The sense of hearing – as I had often heard said in my earlier life – is the last faculty to fade away at death. I can confirm this to be not only true but an understatement of monumental proportions. I lay there, to an observer a corpse already, but hearing with a clarity I had never experienced before. The unrelenting and constant rushing sound and thumping of my restless pulse had stopped, and I was free to hear, as I had never heard before, in those final seven seconds. Years before, I had visited the Gobi region in Mongolia, and had walked about a mile away from the tiny village where we were staying, in order to experience Silence. As I sat in the deathly calm of the Gobi scrubland, things certainly did become very quiet, but I became increasingly aware of the rushing of the blood around my veins, the thump of a restless pulse, which became louder and louder, the quieter my surroundings became. It seems that we carry our own racket around with us, to protect us from any danger of Real Silence.

Now, however, having just let go of the tinnitus that is life itself, I lay there, absolutely still, bathed in dawn’s early floodlight. With the short-lived gift of perfect hearing, the sound of the birds outside increased, and swelled, until I could well believe that I was hearing the sound of angels, singing unceasing and unbearably loud praises to one another, with fiercely joyous faces, lit, dazzlingly, by that tremendous all-encompassing light, which shone from behind them. The last seven seconds, bathed in the new day’s golden light, and the music of the bird-angels, I slipped away, I know not where.

Who can recall and recount their life before birth? Is there anyone capable of telling and describing the dim weightless warmth and comfort of those paradise months? Is it a dreamlike, drowsy state, or a condition of intense, sharp experience and delight? I do not know, and neither do I know where I went, or what it was like after that slipping away and departure from the only life I had known.

How long was I gone? It felt as though scarcely a second had passed, but it could have been countless aeons, I have no way of telling, but I can say that, against all attempts at explanation or credulity, I found myself, alive, breathing normally, deeply and easily, in a standing position, next to that same bed, in which my just-died self was still lying.

Yes – there I was – back in that same room I had so recently left – not crippled and struck down by those evil and distorted clumps of rebel cells, warding off all attempts to reign them in, but standing up next to my death-bed, alive, well, strong and fit as in the days of my youth.

How had this miracle come about, the alive me and the dead me? I have no idea at all, why or how I was singled out for this amazing undoing and reversal, but there I stood, looking down at my poor old self, an already corrupting dead thing, dark gash of a mouth, drawn tense and immoveable, blood no longer flowing, but pooling and coagulating, a piece of wreckage, pale and yellow, no rise and fall of chest betraying any flicker of life, eyes open and staring, no facial expression betraying any emotion, whether of joy or despair.

I have to say that I did not look down on my dead self with any sense of affection or sentimentality at all. No, I gazed upon myself with a very deep distaste, disgust even, and saw a piece of unsavoury wreckage, a dead corrupted thing to be covered over, got rid of, disposed of as soon as possible. All manner of shadows, twistedness and corruption seemed to be sticking to that object which was – unbelievable as it seemed – my former self.

I left that room and called my doctor, who happened also to be a good friend of mine. When he had finally managed to apprehend the miracle that had taken place, we consulted together, down in the kitchen, the early sun now shining on the flagstones in that ancient house. What should we do now? Should he write out a death certificate for me? This could make life a bit complicated, he pointed out, as – with a valid and official death certificate – I, of course, would no longer exist in a legal sense. Better, we agreed, to hold a simple and quiet funeral service as soon as possible and avoid any complications.

And so, working as quickly and quietly as the now hot mid-morning sun would allow, we dug a short trench in the middle of the orchard, and then fetched that pale and yet dark object from the room upstairs, wrapped it in a sheet, laid it into the ground and said a few short words and a prayer. I raised my eyes from that hole in the ground, now covered over again with freshly turned earth, and smiled at my friend, standing there grinning back at me, as the blood-red cherries hung on the tree nearby.

Despite my brand new life and body I felt tired after all that digging, and lay down on the bank, outside the orchard, adjoining onto the meadow, and, with the bird-angels quieter now, but no less joyous, allowed myself, for the second time that morning, to be engulfed by the warmth, light and glory of that risen sun.