Dying Now

The question of life is death. From the moment we are born, death begins its conquest of our body. No matter what we do to convince ourselves otherwise, it will relentlessly, inevitably overtake us. All of us know this fact. It is so much a part of our reality that often sends us into a state of shock denial. We pretend that it isn’t true. We live as though tomorrow were guaranteed, as though the vibrancy of today could hold this final enemy at bay. Then, every once in awhile, the truth about death invades our Polly Anna delusions and our silver lined clouds rain. Someone dies. And once again we must face the real agony of living – dying.

As if the termination of our animation were not enough, we seem to be constantly confronted with personal reminders of decay even in living. We experience loss. We grieve failure. Our possessions rot. We are in a constant state of maintenance and repair, trying to hold back the tide of decline, dilapidation and deterioration. From the earliest Greek thinkers to the present day, we are struck by the incessant corruption of everything. The creeping doom – a kind of fungus spreading itself upon all living. Change and death are our constant companions.

God is vitally interested in this issue. But His concern is not focused on the trauma that we think is so important. He is not distraught about the inevitably of my physical dying or the inexorable procession of the entire universe into the sinkhole of the second law of thermodynamics. My dying and the dying of my universe is a foregone result of sin, and therefore of relatively little consequence. There is nothing that can be done about it. Even God will not reverse the tide and undo sin’s inescapable result. To do so would be blasphemy. Therefore, God’s concern is not about the inevitability of my situation. His concern is focused in the immediate present. It is really the yearning that I recognize that I am already dead in spite of the fact that I am presently animated. God is vitally interested that I not be lulled into a false anxiety, that I get the right perspective, that I worry about Death instead of dying.

We need to clearly understand the difference between God’s view of the problem of death and our view of the problem of dying. We think of our lives as a certain number of years here on this planet. We project the same fate for everything else based on our experience of change and decay. Consequently, we know we will pass from this life at some time in the future. Whether we face our physical death with fear or with peace, whether we try to ignore the whole issue or plan for our demise, our focus is still on the end of this brief span of time.

But that is not God’s view. God’s perspective is one of everlasting existence. From His perspective, our lives do not end when we physically die. Physical death is simply the end of the time frame that we have been given to make choices concerning the rest of our everlasting life.

God is not concerned about dying. He is concerned about Death. Dying is only about the transition from this world to the next. Death is about my eternal relationship with God. Death is about being separated eternally from Life for Life can only be found in God. If in my preoccupation with decay and dying, I am deluded into thinking that I am somehow alive now without God’s Life, then I am truly in a pathetic state. I am really already dead, separated from the one Being who offers life. That is why we must say that those who do not have a living relationship with God now, in this very instant, appear animate (they move, breathe, eat, etc.) but they are not really alive.

This distinction is clearly seen the Jesus’ attitude toward dying and death. In several Gospel accounts, Jesus treats physical dying in an almost cavalier fashion. A dead child is raised to life with no more effort than waking someone from sleep. Even with Lazarus, Jesus deliberately delays his arrival, unconcerned about the dying of his friend. And when he does witness the funeral mourners, he weeps not for Lazarus but for the tragic disruption to the Father’s creation that sin has perpetrated. He tells Mary that he is the Life; that she should not be confused about the appearances of dead bodies that are of little consequence in the greater scheme of the Kingdom. And to prove his point, he calls Lazarus forth. Jesus is distraught over the invasion of Death into God’s world and the unbelievable misconnection and misunderstanding that this symptom of the Enemy has perpetrated upon God’s children. But he treats dying as little more than sleep.

Nothing contributes more to our spiritual misconnection than confusing dying with Death. We must constantly remind ourselves that Jesus came to our world, not simply to die but to confront Death by dying. Dying was not a passive action in his life. It did not happen to him. He chose to die in order to fulfill his obedience to the Father. Dying had purpose. But this does not make Jesus some kind of martyr. His own active embrace of dying was not tragedy. It was victory over Death. When Jesus struggled with obedience in the Garden, he was not fearful of dying. His entire life had only that one purpose – to die. Jesus struggled with the real enemy of our souls – separation from God. That is Death!

This should tell us something very important. God is vitally concerned with the issue of Death. His solution to the problem of my individual Death is simple: embrace Death now so that Death will no longer be a factor in my living. From God’s perspective, we can either choose to embrace death now by dying to self and entering into the everlasting life of His kingdom, or we can postpone the choice of dying to self until we physically die when we will inherit the consequences of our denial of God’s life. In the larger scheme of things, God has already issued the recall order for the entire corrupted creation. A new order is at hand; ready to replace the contaminated dying one. Our challenge to embrace death now is at the same time a call to move from the unavoidable final Death of the old order to the glorious Life of the new order.

Our perspective on life here and now drives us to be concerned with the “when” question. When will we die? Most of us believe that the answer to this question is the great unknown of life. We buy insurance because we don’t know when. We write wills because we don’t know when. We plan, ponder and pontificate because we don’t know when. God must be utterly amazed at our foolishness. Utterly amazed because He has already told us that the question of when we die is very much up to us. We have been given the power to decide this issue. It does not depend on some unknowable future date when our bodies will expire. It depends on our immediate choice to repent of our ego selfishness. We have not been given the option of deciding the question if we will die. But we have absolutely been given the option of settling the question of when we will die. For we will either die now in the act of repentance, or we continue toward final Death as the inevitable consequence of separation from God. We will die either by repenting of our self in control attitude about living or we will know finally that we are dead when selfish control removes our choice. The answer to the question of life is deciding to die now.

In order for us to be redeemed, to appropriate for ourselves the purchase price already paid in the substitutionary death of Jesus, we must turn our backs on the apparent reality of the world order. We must be ready and willing to take a metaphysical step. This requires nothing more (or less) than denying the reality of the operating principles of the world order and affirming the operating principles of the new Kingdom.

Renouncing my preoccupation with self in control is the essential ingredient in asking God to enact the miracle of rebirth in a life that I acknowledge is already dead. It is to agree with God that I am utterly ruined, contaminated, hopelessly infected. It is to agree that I cannot be rescued from my self in control existence through my own efforts. It is to raise my hands in despair at my plight and acknowledge that only a genuine metaphysical miracle of the highest order can create real life from what is “living” death. It is recognizing that the consequences of my current way of non-life animation will eventually manifest itself as real Death. What is required is a miracle no less phenomenal than creation ex nihilo for what must occur is the generation of a vibrant, healthy entity from something that is metaphysically toxic and terminally ill.

The behavioral result of repentance is a complete change in attitude toward the former operating principles of life. This means the acceptance of an entirely different way of being. But this does not mean that the enlightened seeker can now attempt to reassert metaphysical independence based on his newfound knowledge. Knowledge does not save. Once we understand this metamorphosis, we cannot thereafter simply adopt a new work/grace ethic. To do so would once again place self at the operating center of our universe.

The intended consequence of repentance is not pride at having rightly seen the consequences of separation from God. It is rather true humility brought about by realizing the utterly hopeless position we have foisted upon ourselves. Repentance might be seen as the only valid option that mankind has. To resist is to die. But to submit is also to die – and be born again as a new creation. God has issued a recall. The present world order is dead. It does not share in real life even though it appears to be animate. It is a system with a terminal disease and nothing can be done to keep it alive. In spite of all of its present activity, from the long-term perspective it is fatally ill. The old order is terminally ill as a direct result of the incurable disease of sin. God is not going to cure it. Instead, God is going to create a new order out of what is now, for all intents and purposes, lifeless trash.

God wants us to live! In order to make that possible, He must reconstruct us so that we can breathe the air of the new world. The water world of the old order is being replaced by the world of new spiritual air. We need the spiritual equivalent of lungs, not gills. Those creatures that remain dependent on gills for breathing will not survive in the new order. Once the world order was infected with the lethal virus, the only permanent solution was its destruction and replacement. Now that the replacement operation is underway, it is imperative that we allow ourselves to be adapted to its new parameters if we are going to live.

We were born with an endless future. Dying will not change that fact. But the state of our present and future condition can be altered forever by the choices we make about Death. If we choose to remain animate, occupied with the perspective of when, concerned with the power of self in control, we will make dying our connection to Death. If we choose to reject the apparent viability of the animate and opt to die now, if we are willing to embrace death as the means of escape from every subtle tentacle of our old order, we will begin sharing Life for eternity. The question of life is death. And the answer to that question is to choose to die.