Tom VerWay, my father, died five years ago tomorrow (April 22). This was my first writing after he passed on to heaven. It seems fitting to speak about death in these days of the coronavirus.
Dateline: May 5, 2015
My dad died less than two weeks ago. At times it feels like his death happened this morning while at other times it feels like I haven’t talked to my dad in years. You who have travelled this road before me know I have much to learn in the days, months, and years to come. For now, I’ve learned this – death stinks.
For many years I’ve thought my dad could die at any time. Like many ministry families, Brenda and I have lived hundreds of miles away from our parents since our marriage. Over the last ten years I’ve said goodbye to my dad, kissed him on the cheek, and wondered if that would be the last time I saw him this side of heaven. Those brief times of separation have given way to the great gulf fixed between us, and I have concluded death stinks.
I suppose I was insulating myself over the last many years for what is inevitable in all of us. In my mind there was no way my dad would live to be an old man. His gene pool has produced zero elderly men or women. To a person my dad’s immediate family all died long before they reached their 70s. I concluded he would not be the one to break the cycle. For years I’ve been preparing myself for his eventual death, silently hoping the preparation would lessen the pain. Still, when I said goodbye previously, I could always call, jump on an airplane to Chicago, or make a drive to Wisconsin. I can’t do that anymore. Death took that from me. Death stinks.
My dad was a strong man back in the day. Before computers and electronics controlled an automobile’s performance, my dad turned wrenches and lay on the damp, cold ground repairing vehicles from compact cars to big, yellow school buses. For the last decade his diminishing body would not allow him to do the simplest of tasks. Where he used to swing a mallet with his right arm, that same arm betrayed him. He couldn’t lift a fork to his mouth with his dominant hand. He no longer walked, he shuffled. He no longer labored, he watched. The life in his body was fading, slow at first and rapid at the end.
I hated watching my dad go through the dying process. His nurses in the ICU were kind and gentle to him, fitting for a man who was described by those at his funeral as kind and gentle. These compassionate women performed the unpleasant tasks that accompany a frail man in the hospital’s ICU. While I appreciated what they did for him, I hated that death required them do it. I watched as death forced women who were complete strangers to my dad to clean him up after a normal, human function. I hate what death did to him in his final days of life. I hate the physical pain death inflicted on him. I hate the emotions death pressed on him. I hate the confusion death put in his mind. Death stinks.
Death is our mortal enemy, and will be the last enemy of humanity to know the crush of our Savior’s foot (1 Corinthians 15:26). For now death roams the earth taking the lives of the Nepalese via an earthquake, of the unborn via abortion, of the sick via cancer, heart disease, or Alzheimer’s, COVID-19), or the faithful via the persecutor’s sword.
Wherever death slithers, it leaves coldness in its path. Even when we say how glad we are someone’s suffering is over, we say it with resignation. Our preference would be to keep the person here without the suffering. But death will not allow another day, another month, or another year. Death shows no mercy. Death is satisfied only when a heart stops beating, a lung stops breathing, an eye stops seeing, lips stop talking, and ears stop hearing. I hate death. Death stinks.
The psalmist tells us, “Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His saints” (116:15) – precious in the Lord’s sight, but not in mine. What I see is a lifeless body. There is no answer when I call his cell phone. He does not sit in his seat at the table. I cannot hear him thank the Lord in prayer for the meal we are about to eat. Death took that from me. Death stinks!
I sorrow, but not as one without hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Apart from Jesus' resurrection which is the first of what will be true for all who die in faith (1 Corinthians 15:20), I would have to find a way to dull the pain of death. Worse still I would need to insulate myself from the deaths that remain in my future. How can I ever face them apart from the resurrection of Jesus?
O Lord Jesus, death has delivered a punishing blow. Help me, help all of us, to look to you, the captain of our salvation, who has conquered death in his own body and who will crush death once and for all. Except you deliver us, we shall all perish. I have no other hope.
As always I welcome your feedback and any suggestions you might have for an upcoming Lunchtime Musing.
Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision