“But I Don’t Want to Die”

My friend Tim is a manager of a small company. Because he often hires people for their first full-time job, he gets to tell new employees about their benefits. One time, Tim was trying to explain to a man how life insurance works, but the man seemed unhappy. It was almost as if he didn’t want this benefit. Tim was persistent, nevertheless. “If you die,” he said, “then your family will get a lot of money.” The new employee finally was able to verbalize his concern, “But Tim,” he responded somberly, “I don’t want to die!”

I expect most of us feel like this, even if we don’t say it. We embrace life and don’t want to consider death. Many things in our culture keep us from facing the reality of death. We work hard to remain youthful in appearance and healthy in body so as to delay the inevitable. We’d rather not think about the fact that we will die.

Thus, we may be less than happy with Genesis 3:19. Though originally addressed by God to the first man, this verse speaks to all of us, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” You are dust, and to dust you shall return. This is the bad news we’d rather avoid, the bad news of our mortality, our inevitable death. And it is bad news, news that God had not intended for us in the beginning. Death, with physical and spiritual dimensions, is a result of sin. As we read in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death.” So, even as we were created from dust, we will return to the dust, the dust of death.

Yet, thanks be to God, the bad news of death is not the last word on the subject. Romans 6:23 continues, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life, according to Scripture, is not just heavenly post-mortem existence. Rather, it is the life of the future that we can begin to experience now.

…When we recognize that we are dust and will return to dust, when we accept our mortality, when we acknowledge the bad news that we will die because of sin, then we are prepared to hear and receive the good news of the gospel. Then we are ready to put off our old, deathly way of living and put on new life in Christ. When we face our mortality, we are ready to embrace our immorality.