The Vocabulary Of Death

Let’s go back to the great optical illusion. My grandma had died. Every single time I had ever looked at that face I was looking at my grandma, but that was no longer true. As a fourth grader I couldn’t put it into words but I was able to figure it out later. Without a disciplined mental process, our emotions will peer through our eyes and respond appropriately. They will see that the loved one looks dead. They will then watch as the loved one is either buried in the ground or burned up in a fire. They will respond with sorrow, and only with sorrow, because that is all we are giving them to work with.

One way we can help ourselves is by being very careful, and very Christian about the words we use about death.

We do not buried anybody. And you better not start now. It’s against the law; it’s a monstrous act. The only way to bury a person is to bury them alive; and even then they won’t stay buried because their bodies will die and their souls will depart from that grave.
We did not, will not, bury a loved one at the Shady Rest Cemetery. We laid their body to rest at the Shady Rest Cemetery. Just saying it the right way will make you think about the hope. And the comfort is in the hope.

I Couldn't Resist

My daughter’s little dog just jumped into my lap to give me my morning greeting. Since I am typing this with the keyboard in my lap while sitting in a recliner, I had to move the keyboard to keep from getting some canine input via the keyboard. Playfully I asked the little dog if she should like to share some thoughts on dog heaven with my readers. The thought that came into my mind was of a vast, green field filled with very slow rabbits. In the center of the field there looms a giant fire hydrant . .

The Pre-Rapture Rapture

Come fly with me into orbit above the country where you live. We will be making this flight during the night, on the side of the earth that is turned away from the sun. This would work on the daylight side of the planet just as well, but we might get a better visual on the night side. We will hang in orbit in our space ship looking down at the earth below. It will be utterly quiet (there is no sound in space). We can see the lights of the great cities below us.

Suddenly God touches us. He opens our eyes to see into the spirit realm. He opens our ears to hear in that realm. Our view of the earth is suddenly transformed. What are these bright and shinning lights rising up from the earth and flashing past us into the depths of space? What are these glad cries of triumph, of exultation, of unspeakable joy that fill our ears?

What we are seeing and hearing is the pre-rapture rapture. It is the rapture that you experience without your physical body. This is the other side of death. It is filled with glory and wonder. For thousands of years human have mourned and known great sorrow at the physical death of their loved ones. It is not wrong for a Christian to grieve. But our grief should be balanced with hope and in the comfort of hope we should eventually come to the place of joy because our loved ones are now living the life of perfect joy.
The next time you look up into the sky think about it: the pre-rapture rapture. It’s been going on for thousands of years. The departed souls of the Christians you knew and loved have taken that flight. If the Lord tarries, someday soon, you and I will join them.

We Play Until We Win

For a Christian, the game is never over until the Christian wins. There may be thousands of defeats along the way, but in the end the Christian wins.

Make a list of everything your departed loved one didn’t like about himself or his life. Everything. Let me help you. I don’t like having to struggle with my weight. I hate having to fight reoccurring depression due to Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don’t like having to wear bifocals. I wish my body still felt the way it did when I was 25. I am weary of struggling with sin. My neighbor’s dog woke us up last night at 3:00 a.m. They leave him out all night and every once in awhile he wakes us up. I love the wilderness but I don’t like mosquitoes. As a manager sometimes I have to have confrontations with people at work that upset me.

For your departed loved one, all of that is suddenly gone. Forever. Every single battle is over.
Maybe you want to start another list. What are some of the things in your life that you wouldn’t mind leaving behind when your body dies?

Act 3

The third act in your mental movie is the arrival in heaven. Vividly picture your departed loved one meeting friends and family that are waiting for them. How long has it been since your grandparents have seen you? Do you really think they are going to greet you with a handshake? How long has it been since you’ve seen your mom? How hard do you think she’s going to hug you?

Keep in mind that everyone in heaven will be family. Everyone in heaven will love the way we should already be loving on earth, with perfect love. Everyone in heaven is a big deal to the other people who live there because everyone in heaven sees you as God sees you and values you as God values you. Everyone you knew on earth will greet you in heaven like a long lost brother.
You have this vivid, visual picture of the dead body of your departed loved one in your mind. That thing in the coffin is not your loved one, it’s just his body. Picture your loved one where they are at right now. Do this frequently. Play your mental movies over and over again. Don’t just read this and then forget it. Discipline yourself to create the mental movies. You already know how to daydream. This is the kind of thing you should have been daydreaming about all along.

Act Two

Okay, you’ve taken the time to visualize the reaction of your loved one at finding himself physically dead. That’s act one in your mental move. What happens next, in act two, is truly amazing.

Jesus told a story of a man named Lazarus who “died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham.” (Luke 16:22 NLT) In those days, before the resurrection, saved souls went to paradise, which is not exactly the same place as heaven. Since the resurrection, saved souls ascend into heaven. And they are carried there by angels.

Visualize the person, still in the room with their own dead body, suddenly becoming aware of the presence of an angel. You should picture the angel as a human form, clothed in white, with an angelic expression on his face. Wings are optional. In the Bible we encounter some angels who don’t have wings. They’ll be able to fly without them. Trust me. You should definitely visualize the angel as having the same color skin as the person who has just died.

The angel is probably going to say something along the lines of “it’s time to go.” Visualize the person who has just passed into the next life as understanding what this means and accepting everything that is about to happen without the slightest trace of fear (even if they were afraid of heights in this life).

Picture your loved one being picked up by the angel and beginning their upward flight by passing through the ceiling. Imagine the look of wonder on their face as they pass through the ceiling and as they rise higher and higher in the sky. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always wanted to fly up in a rocket and see the earth from orbit. I will eventually get my wish but I won’t need a rocket to get up there.

Imagine the look on the face of your loved one as they rise higher and higher. Visualize them looking down on the earth. See them moving out into the vastness of space. Picture them looking back as the earth grows smaller and smaller. I don’t know about you, but I plan to ask the angel for a flyby of Saturn on my way out. Saturn is probably the most beautiful object in the solar system.

At the time of death and the funeral your mind will be full of the mental pictures of a dead body. Perhaps you saw the remains of the person at the hospital immediately after they passed away. In most cases you would also see the remains of the person at the funeral home. You need to fight back against the great optical illusions with vivid, faith based mental pictures of what really happened. Visualize the ascent of your loved one toward heaven. This is act two of your mental movie.

Hasta la vista

If you are present at the moment when a loved one passes away, it might be a good idea to speak to them in the moments immediately following physical death. Tell them you love them and that you are excited about the great adventure that is before them. I do not think that it would be inappropriate to ask them to pass on a message to someone. “Tell mom I love her and that I’ll be along soon.” Do not say goodbye. Tell them that you’ll see them later. We will have more to say about this in the upcoming posting on the vocabulary of death.

Act One

The apostle Paul reminds us that “we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7) The book of Hebrews defines faith as being “certain of what we do not see.” (Heb. 11:1 NIV) At the time of death our physical vision actually makes the process of grieving harder because it is trapped by the great optical illusion. We think we are looking at the person and the person doesn’t look good. The person looks dead. Our emotions respond to what our eyes are seeing and this deepens our grief.

One of the best ways to deal with this is to create a vivid mental picture of what has actually happened, and then to play this little movie over and over again in the theater of your mind as you grieve.

On the basis of thousands and thousands of stories told by people who have had “near death” experiences, I think that it is safe to assume that the person regains consciousness in spirit form while still in the presence of their body. They can see their body and everything in the room around them, but no one else in the room can see them because they are in spirit form. Based on what you know about the person who you are grieving for, reconstruct their probable reaction to being dead.

I’m pretty sure that I will react something like this. “Oh my goodness, that’s my body over there! This must mean I’m dead!” Followed quickly by, “I knew it! I knew it all along! I’m still alive even though my body is dead. It’s all true!”

This is the first act in your little mental movie. Visualize the person trying to interact with others in the room. “Hey, look, it’s me! I’m alright! I’m still alive!” Visualize them as they begin to understand that you can not see or hear them. Don’t visualize them as being afraid. People who relate these experiences say that they had no sense of fear. Visualize this as vividly as you can as often as you need to.

The Great Optical Illusion

If you want to get the full benefit of this new thread of postings, please go back and reread the July 30^th posting about getting hit by a bus.

I once came upon a mountain lion while hiking in the Rockies. We approached him from upwind, that is the breeze was blowing from him to us so he couldn’t smell us as we approached. His reaction upon seeing us was interesting. He ran an almost perfect half circle around us through the woods in order to get downwind from us. With the breeze now blowing from us to him he was able to use his dominant sense, he sense of smell, to “see” what we were. Having taken a good whiff of us, he then bounded off into the woods. The important point to note is that he could see us and he could hear us, but in order to be really sure he had to smell us. His sense of smell was his main way of interacting with the surrounding world.

The sense of smell is the most important sense for most mammals, but not for man. We depend primarily on sight. You might hear the voice of someone coming up behind you, and you might think that you recognize that voice, but if you want to be sure you will turn around and look at the person.

This visual thing works to our great disadvantage when it comes to dealing with death. We go into a funeral home and view the remains of the dear departed. We look at the face and automatically compare the way that face looks now with the way that face looked while the person was still living. And as we do this, unless we are careful, we are fooled by the great optical illusion that is death.

Think of how many thousands of times you have looked upon this face while the person was still living. You could tell so much about the condition of the person by looking at their face. Was he stressed or happy? Did he look tired or sick? Every single time up to that first viewing of the body in the funeral home your eyes were telling you the truth about the condition of the person you were seeing. Your brain does this automatically; you don’t even have to think about it.

But when it comes to dealing with death, it is imperative that we do think about it. No matter how skillful the art of the mortician, the face that you are looking at doesn’t look good. It is lifeless and unresponsive. It looks like the person is dead. Let me say that again: it looks like the person is dead. So now, for the first time in the thousands, or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of times you’ve looked at that person, your eyes are lying to you. It’s an optical illusion. The person is not dead. In fact, you aren’t looking at the person at all. All your looking at is the body they used to live in.

My first encounter with human death was the passing of my grandmother. I remember being very angry and walking away from the group at the graveside service. I remember thinking to myself, people ought not to end up like this. I was fooled by the optical illusion. My mind interpreted the message from my eyes and my emotions responded to it. Grandma didn’t look right. She looked horrible. She looked dead. And so my emotions responded to what my eyes were seeing. Once again, we do this without thinking about it. But it is imperative that we do think about it.

My grandmother did not, in fact, look like she was dead. This is because she wasn’t dead. Grandma was alive. The only problem was that I could no longer see her. All I could see was her body. Her body was dead and so my emotions responded to what my eyes were seeing. I failed to analyze the situation and remind myself that for the first time in my life I couldn’t trust what my eyes were telling me when I looked at Grandma. That wasn’t Grandma any more. Grandma wasn’t there. Grandma was still alive.

It imparts life to me

God has spoken. Are we listening? Have you ever read the entire New Testament? If I spend even fifteen minutes reading the Bible, it imparts life to me. It can change the whole tone of my day. Only a lunatic would neglect the Bible.

Joy

A.W. Tozer described the three persons of the Godhead as living in a “bottomless, boundless, shoreless sea of perfect love and bliss.” (Tozer on the Holy Spirit, Feb. 2 reading) We are only whole when we are in His presence. He is the living water for which our souls so desperately thirst. Why do we spend so little time with Him?

Eternity

It is insane not to live with eternity in view. Every act of goodness, no matter how small, will be remembered and rewarded. I haven’t saved for retirement as I should have, but I have been a pretty good giver over the years. Recently God reminded me that I had my priorities in good order (which is not to say that I shouldn’t have saved more for retirement). Every penny that I have given away is waiting for me on the other side, with interest. Reread the Gospels and highlight every time Jesus references the important of the upcoming, eternal reward. Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. As Jim Elliot said, “No man is a fool who gives up what he can not keep to gain that which he can not loose.” To put it another way, the Holy Spirit recently whispered this in my ear: “Ultimately, nothing visible matters.”

Fear

Worry is a waste of life and a denial of God’s love and power. Nothing that can happen to me apart from the presence and power of God in my life. There is always some kind of plan and provision for everything that happens. God may deliver me now, or deliver me later, or not deliver me at all, but there is always a plan and a provision. Always. What I have to do is to be still and silent before the Lord until He shows me the way. God intends that there should be a supernatural element to every part of your life. What you have to do is discern the way in which God wants you to flow with power and provision day by day.