When I was involved in the dispute over the banning of corporal discipline in schools, I was once asked by the Melbourne radio announcer, Derryn Hinch, to be interviewed. I consented, and he rang and launched into his first question: ‘Do you think that Jesus went around Jerusalem bashing children?’ By this time I had become rather weary of journalists and radio gurus who thought that being moronic was the same as being provocative, so I snapped back: ‘If you don’t know the difference between bashing and discipline, you ought to buy yourself a little dictionary and look these words up.’ Clearly, he became as annoyed with me as I was with him, because he hung up on me. It was the shortest interview that I gave in the whole campaign!
I was reminded of that exchange a few weeks ago when I read an interview with Hinch who is now facing the prospect of death through liver cancer. After putting in a plug for euthanasia, he beat his chest: ‘I am not scared of death. Not one scintilla. I have no regrets. If I hadn’t drunk so much, I might have been a better person, a better husband. I might have blown less money. But that’s not a regret. We all had a hell of a lot of fun.’ One’s first response is that Ahab showed more remorse than Hinch has managed (1 Kings 21:27-29). One’s second response is that this is just bravado. It is a variation of the newspaper tycoon, William Randolph Hearst, who in his latter years imposed a strict rule on all guests to his house, not to mention death in his presence.
The Bible is rather more realistic. It states that ‘Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, [Christ] Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery’ (Heb.2:14-15). Death is at first the great unknown, and it comes certainly and swiftly. As William Wordsworth lamented:
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
Death is relentless in its pursuit of us all. We are all going there, but we are not sure when or in what manner.
Furthermore, death is often associated with pain. Christopher Hitchens has spent his life railing against God, but now finds, like Derryn Hinch, that he is stricken with cancer. He has recorded: ‘You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water.’ This is pain with no real meaning, in Hitchens’ view: ‘Against me is the blind, emotionless alien’. To the question ‘Why me?’, Hitchens imagines a barely interested cosmos replying: ‘Why not?’
However, the most disturbing thing of all about death is the suppressed sense in all of us that it ushers in the judgment. The Son of Man shall come in His glory, with all His angels, and He will separate the sheep from the goats. To the sheep, He will say: ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matt.25:34). To the goats, He will say: ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’ (Matt.25:41). This will be the day above all other days, and the word above all other words. Our eternal destiny will be announced.
That is why so many reject Christ’s words – they do not want them to be true, so they suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom.1:18). This can be down by adopting a superior stance and insisting that death holds no terrors for us. Or we can simply avoid the issue. Or shrug our shoulders and pretend that we know so little. Or we can do what Rob Bell has just done, and argue, badly, that ‘Love Wins’, and we all get to Paradise in the end. All these responses are simply disguised fear. The only true way to overcome this fear of death is to entrust ourselves to Him who has defeated death for the sake of His people. As Stephen confronted a hostile crowd of Jews, he declared: ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’ (Acts 7:56). He called out: ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit’ (Acts 7:59). That is how to die without fear.
With warmest regards in Christ,
Peter Barnes