Death’s Repetitive Sting

O death, where is thy sting?

O grave, where is thy victory?

1 Corinthians 15:55

"Researchers not long ago professed to have come up with a questionnaire that could measure a person’s chances of dying within the next four years. According to one of the designers, the test reported to be roughly 81 percent accurate among those who were 50 years or older. Their report,

which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, claimed the assessment could be useful to doctors in offering prognostic information and to patients who want a more determined look at the future. Regardless of the questionnaire’s effectiveness, however, the headline still struck me as curious: “Test Helps You Predict Chances of Dying.”

It brings to mind the lines of Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.” We don’t need a test to tell us our chances of dying. Death will come for all of us.

British statesman and avowed atheist Roy Hattersley writes in the Guardian of an experience at a funeral. It was a funeral, he said, which almost converted him to the belief that funeral services—of which he has disapproved for years—ought to be encouraged.
His conclusion was forged as he sang the hymns and studied the proclamations of a crowd that seemed sincere: “[T]he church is so much better at staging last farewells than non-believers could ever be.”
He continues, “‘Death where is thy sting, grave where is thy victory?’ are stupid questions. But even those of us who do not expect salvation find a note of triumph in the burial service. There could be a godless thanksgiving for and celebration of the life of [whomever]. The music might be much the same. But it would not have the uplifting effect without the magnificent, meaningless, words.”

When you are given the opportunity to be an observer at that many funerals, something happens. The reality of the sting of death became like a running commentary on the futility of life and the fleeting nature of humanity.

But there was an incredible paradox in this looming experience of death’s repetitive sting. With each new grave came the unnaturalness of the process all over again—
---a body at the front of the altar,
---a hole dug deeply,
---a coffin lowered.

Yet as death continued to rear its ugly head in our small community and life stood futile to stop it, the words—God’s words—spoken over the body again and again did not become futile themselves. On the contrary, they grew all the more resounding.

We are the only creatures in this world who ceremoniously bury their dead, who speak words over bodies, over our friends and loved ones, and take them all the way to the grave. Why does death never cease to seem unnatural even despite the worldview we bring to the funeral?"
JillCarattini/RZIM