I don't think death is ever a cause for celebration. Certainly not in and of itself. I was saddened that when Osama Bin Laden was killed celebrations broke out, not at the idea of a victory over a legitimate foe, or the idea of freedom from a certain danger being achieved, but simply at the death of a man. I was quite simply repulsed today by the thought that some people in this nation - even this city - would consider celebrating the death of Baroness Thatcher. What an example of the failure of human dignity, the failure of mankind to live up to even the basic standards of decency once more. An old lady, suffering from Dementia, has died, leaving behind a grieving family. She also happens to be the first (and thus far only) woman to have held the highest political office in the country. This frail old lady still arouses such passions, that one otherwise gentle and jovial old man who sat next to me on a plane once told me 'I'd dance on her grave'. Grace? Forgiveness? Not for her. Such is the attitude of many tonight, sadly.
That gets me thinking about another death we've been remembering these past few months, a death that (some might argue) we do celebrate. I refer of course to Jesus. It would be wrong to say we celebrate his death. That was on the Friday. That was a sombre moment and a cataclysmic moment. The celebration came on Sunday, with the resurrection. It is rather important not to confuse them. One lawyer this Easter in a Scottish court was pleading for a light sentence for his client, and said 'after all, M'Lord, it is Easter time'. To which the presiding Sheriff replied 'yes, it is good Friday - are you asking me to impose crucifixion?'
In the Easter story God brought life from death, not unlike the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes of it's former self.
Which is interesting.
Because death come to us all. This is a subject that has, for better or for worse, occupied my mind for the past few days. Not deliberately, but I wonder if subconsciously I have been heeding the advice of the writer of Ecclesiastes, who counsels us that 'a wise person thinks a lot about death'.
I am currently writing and revising a talk I am to give on Thursday at an Alpha course launch night, and death raises many of those wonderful and horrible questions of life that Alpha is designed to explore. Is death the end? Do my decisions now make a difference to what happens in the end? Or, as Tolstoy asked in typically poetic language, 'is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death that awaits me?'
In addition to Alpha and Ecclesiastes there is another thing that has made these issues the focus of my thoughts of late. It was a Christian writer (I won't name names) who was providing some remarkably pleasing answers to horrendously difficult questions. It was enticing. It is that simple after all! That's just what I'd like to believe! Except as I thought it through, and went back to basic truths, I saw that it just isn't that simple. There are big things at stake. Big questions to which we each need to find an answer. And the answer you find matters enormously.
Which leads me to death number four. (Maggie, Jesus, Everyone... Have you been counting?)
Our deaths. (Wait, that was number three wasn't it? Have you lost count?). What I mean is our pre-death deaths. Perhaps it's too late at night for such nonsense. I soldier on regardless.
What I mean by a pre-death death, is a kind of death that, like the Easter story and like the Phoenix, leads to new life. It is a kind of death that leads to new life of such a vibrant degree, and of such an increasing fullness, that the 'official' bodily death becomes just a mere formality to seal the transition. It is the death Jesus asks us to die in order that we can follow him into resurrected life. A death not brought about by violence, disease or age, but a death brought about by the decision to throw yourself spiritually from a great height.
I have never bungee jumped. I don't have the cajones for such a feat. I consider that my impulse NOT to jump is a prime example of natural instinct at it's most effective. But when it comes to the big questions, the surprising answer (or so I've found, at any rate) is that dying a spiritual death, throwing the whole broken lot of me over the edge, has resulted in a Phoenix-like rebirth, where behind every lost cause there lurks a miracle story, and over every insurmountable object there is written 'hope'. What glorious grace, to fall from a great height only to fall into the arms of the God who was waiting to catch me, and then to give me wings.
Death comes to us all. But then so can life.
