Cartoonology. There is great theology in cartoons and comics.
Too many birthdays will kill you. It is true, but the only alternative to growing old is to die young. Death is something no one likes to think about very much while at the same time death is all around us.
When I was in college, I took a class called “Death and Dying”. I remember the professor starting the class off by asking how many students had ever attended a funeral. It was surprising to me that very few raised their hands. I have memories of funerals from my earliest age. I think the very first funeral I remember was for my Grandmother Armstrong, and I still recall one song they sang. It was “Farther Along”. When someone died in the family, we children were taken along for the funeral, and there were many given the size of our family.
I have known parents who shield their children from funerals. I think it is a mistake. A healthy view of death is essential, and just like most other things; it needs to be taught early on. Children are much more resilient than we give them credit for. Certainly, the biblical viewpoint of death is a healthy one. The Apostle Paul had such a view.
Philippians 1:21 (NKJV)
21 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
The psalmist did too.
Psalm 116:15 (NKJV)
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord Is the death of His saints.
The word precious implies value. We highly value the things that are precious to us. From God’s perspective, the death of one of His children is highly valuable to him, because that child now gets to come home to live with Him in eternal bliss. From the Christian’s perspective, death is gain because the child of God simply gets more of Christ. I believe this is what Paul meant. He had Christ in his life, but death would give him more of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:6-7).
We can approach death the same way we approach many other realities of life; with determination, with resolve, with faith, with hope, with assurance. Jesus gave us a wonderful promise. We need to claim it for ourselves through faith and surrender to Him as Lord and Savior (John 11:21-27). 03-19-09
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