Suicide has at times been considered the only unpardonable sin. The idea behind this is that you are unable to ask forgiveness after you commit it, therefore unable to obtain a pardon. But then like every other act, a black and white approach may not fit all situations. Take for example the 3 Hebrew men who refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue of gold. They knew the penalty for this act of disobedience was death. Their own words to the king revealed this awareness when they said … “even if their God does not spare them, they cannot bow down.” Is this not a conscience act of suicide, choosing a course that will surely lead to your death? One could argue that ultimate end of their faith spared them from death, as it was with Isaac who placed himself on the altar his father built to God. But the early Christians who faced death by the thousands in the coliseum of Rome were not spared death for their refusal to reject the name of Christ for that of Diana. Samson as well, was granted full strength to bring down that pagan temple despite the knowledge of God it would be his last act on earth. It appears not all suicides can fall into the same category with God.
What about a “right to die”? Do we have one? When the pain of our lives is so constant, unrelenting, and hopeless is a final alternative an acceptable one? It is hard again to answer this question in concrete terms. Consider the despair a victim feels of being bullied in school; powerless, defeated, hopeless – yet we would all wish to intervene and prevent what is otherwise a needless death. But consider an elderly citizen who is racked with terminal stage 4 cancer throughout their entire body – how long do we keep them on morphine and machines if there is no medical help to ease their pain before they eventually pass into the sleep of death? Both feel pain, both feel despair, both feel hopelessness – while the bullying might be stopped the cancer will likely not. It would take outside intervention to make either situation better.
So why does God not save His children from pain and death? Why does God not directly intervene in the situation of bullied child before it reaches the point of suicide, or heal the cancer patient despite the advancement of the disease? We know He could do it. And it seems He chooses not to. Does that not leave God with at least a partial responsibility for these losses? Many in our world believe this, and hold God accountable if not fully to blame, for every act of death that occurs. When someone falls in a storm, tornado, earthquake, or other natural disaster – God is held to blame. When a Christian dies from disease despite prayers for healing – the Atheist uses it to verify the lack of existence of a loving God – and the Christian rationalizes to think it must have been “God’s will” that the victim die. In effect the Atheist places less blame on God in this sad situation than the Christian does. But the fact remains that not all prayers to heal the dying or to save the dying are answered. Does God share the blame?
To consider this we must begin at the beginning: when God created man “in His own image”, He did not create us for a mortal life. Death, or non-existence, was supposed to be part of the knowledge of good and of evil that we were to remain blissfully ignorant of. After all prior to the existence of evil, death was a completely foreign/unknown concept. Nothing had ever died, let alone suffered. Plant life lived forever, as did animals, angels, and of course God Himself. When man entered the universe as God’s latest creation he was no different. God’s plans for humans were not stamped with conditions, or a time clock, or with death or disease in mind. Therefore the “will” of God was that every single human would lead a fulfilling existence with Him, each other, in love and service to others. It was AGAINST the will of God that death was introduced into our world. Death then, is the natural and ultimate result of the existence of evil.
Going against God was never even considered in heaven, until the first day Lucifer began to consider what serving self might be like instead of serving others. Despite God’s counsel to forsake the pursuit of self, Lucifer by intent strayed from the government and principles of the Most High. He could not conceive of where it would lead him, and became jealous that God seemed to know something he was unaware of. Evil would then need time to see where it would lead. And while it progressed or rather digressed, it led to pain, suffering, and the opposite of every good thing God had created. Eventually evil was revealed to be the opposite of life itself and existence itself – evil was death. When Lucifer first asked his question why is serving self so bad he did not have it in mind to kill God. But when after years of pursuing this course had deranged and captivated his mind, Satan would have no problem killing Christ as painfully as possible at the culmination of His earthly ministry. Evil would kill God Himself, if it could, and Satan proved it before the entire universe at Calvary.
So while death is a part of our reality, it was never intended to be so by the “will” of God. Rather, the entire plan of salvation is to remove evil from within us, and around us, and one day completely remove the concept of death again from our consideration. The “will” of God is for us to live. But not just to live in a state of pain, but to live a life that is worth living. It is our separation from God, from the source of all love, that causes us so much pain in our world. It is the nature of evil itself to inflict pain, mental, spiritual, and physical in as much quantities as possible. It is evil that is to blame for the pain in us, as well as the pain we cause when we embrace it. These ever widening circles of pain were never part of God’s intentions for us. And sadly, as He told Adam and Eve, He could not allow us to live indefinitely while in a state of the decay of evil and self-service. Were we to be immortal as well as consumed with evil, our lives and our pain would know no limits. Non-existence was not only the natural result of evil, it was also the only relief from evil outside of His salvation.
Thus God looks at our lives beyond our time spent in just this world of evil that surrounds us today. During this meager time frame, He looks to lead us away from the bonds of our service to self, and free us to love as He loves. But He also looks at our lives in TOTAL. He looks at us, and sees us beside His throne, in the trillions of years to come. He sees us in the unbridled joy of eternity, without any of our former pain or limitations, and knows as we would know if we could see it as clearly, that only that life is the one worth preserving. He does sometimes grant our prayers for healing and safety in this world, but in so doing, He also recognizes that our pain will continue while we are here. When death does finally claim us in this world, He recognizes that this minor interruption in our lives, will not prevent us from the eternity of peace, joy, love, and hope He offers in our redemption.
To illustrate to us how death too will pass, He gives us the concept of sleep. Each evening most of us climb into bed and put our minds and bodies to rest in the bliss of sleep. Once we lose our consciousness, time seems to pass in an instant. We wake in the morning without a second by second account of our evening in bed. We cannot remember that at 2:13am we rolled over on our left side, or took an unusually long breath, or passed a particular piece of nutrition from one bodily need to another. We cannot remember how many heart beats occurred. Sometimes we cannot even remember our dreams. We do remember everything right up to the point of sleep. In the morning we remember who we are, what our lives have been like, and what must be done today. But our concept of time while we sleep passes only as an instant. This is why scripture teaches us that death is like a final sleep; “we know not anything” at our death. But at our resurrection, we resume our lives, our memories, and our identities – but we resume them in the perfection He originally intended – finally revealing the true “will” of God in our lives. Cancer, disease, despair and hopeless are gone forever in the perfection God intends.
For those who die, time become irrelevant. In the space of a nanosecond our minds will transition from our last thought to seeing His face coming in the clouds of glory and being escorted by our guardian angel in perfection to His side. Given this knowledge, why would we not consider death a blessing? Why not immediately seek an end to our pain here on earth and a rapid acceleration to His throne? After all why seek to prolong this life, when it is one wrought in pain and suffering – especially when death will claim us all in any case? The answer - is others. Those who would seek an immediate relief to their own suffering tend to ignore their impact on those they love. Not about the loss those who remain will feel after they themselves leave this mortal coil; no, I am talking about the day to day impact of how love can bring peace, joy, and happiness to another even in this world. An eternity spent without those we love will never be quite as rich. Perhaps while we live here in this world, we live to serve others, to show them the love of Christ as we reflect it through us. Perhaps our steadfast mission in a world of pain and suffering and reason to try to prolong our existence here is nothing more than to daily offer a life of love that serves those we care most about. To remind them, that love itself, is the governing principle of heaven and the very nature of our God. To show them, that the only life worth living is one that is based in love. To teach this, to those who we care about, before our opportunity to teach no longer exists.
Like our Savior, our lives are not intended to be lived for ourselves. Our lives are intended to be lived for others, in service to others, in love to others. Our mission as Christians is to follow the ministry of our Lord. When a review of His life is conducted, one can only see countless acts on the behalf of others and none for Himself. As a result, he revealed a love that draws all men unto Him. He revealed the true nature of His Father, whose will was enacted in His life day after day. Christ was not spared the pain felt in this world. He was humiliated. He was tortured. He suffered loss. He went hungry. He ached when we ached, and felt it even more keenly when we refused to accept His freedom from our slavery to pain. He was betrayed by one who claimed to love Him, even to the point of death. He even experienced the same death we do, and spent 3 days in the tomb, resting on the Sabbath, and resuming His work of Salvation early Sunday morning. And in so doing, He showed us again, that death is not our final destination.
We live to serve. We avoid death, and seek to prolong life, not to wallow in our pain, but to allow Him to remove it from us, and make us even better servants. We can keep our hope based in Him, and know with surety that even when the time comes that we lose our battle to prolong this meager existence, we can trust Him. We can know on the other side of our tomb, is a life of infinite service to others, and infinite love. While here our prayer should be … “let me live Lord, but not for myself, make me your servant, and let my life reflect the perfection of your love to ALL I encounter, for my goal is but to serve the living God.” I pray our lives are long, but I pray harder that our lives are filled with meaning that truly echoes in eternity. I pray that our love does more than touch the hearts of those we care about, but melts the hearts of our enemies. I pray that our legacy on this earth is not about the countless things we have done wrong, but about the countless ways we allowed Christ to reach others through our actions. This is how we can face death, and know there is so much more, to this life and in the next one He has promised us.
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