Perspective

Humans have a tendency to focus on what is close hand and miss the bigger picture. The news media in NZ are really upset about the deaths of the 10 elderly people who have died from Covid19. While it is sad for the families of these people, the rest of us should keep the problem in perspective. We seem to have been beset by a terrible fear of death.

Back in 1948 when the world was spooked by the threat of atomic war, CS Lewis wrote the following words.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors – anaesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.

The good times that we have lived through in the last few decades have lulled us into a false sense of security about the reality of living in a fallen world. My father, who grew up during the great depression, used to say.

During hard times people thought they would last forever. Now during good times, people think they will last forever too, but both views are wrong.

Now after many good years, we are disturbed by an event that we cannot easily control, but which should not surprise us.

We should also be careful that we are not spooked by numbers. Death is not something that should not happen. It is inevitable, for all of us. According to the Vitals Statistics published by the Department of Statistics, about 25,000 who are over 70 years of age die each year. That is about 500 a week. I presume that about half of these would have died in aged care facilities. That means that 200-300 people die in rest homes each week. We see their names in the death notices in the paper, but unless we recognise their names, we pass over quickly. Of course, it is usually very sad for their families, but death is part of life.

Children are always being born, and people are always dying. That is the cycle of life. Even if the total number of deaths in New Zealand due to Covid19 were to increase to 100, that would only be a fifth of the number of 70+ people who will die each week. Some of these extra deaths might be shocking and sad, but people die on traumatic and shocking ways all the time. That is the nature of life on earth.

If a nurse with three young children dies of Covid19 that is incredibly sad, but sad stuff happens all the time in this fallen world. Young women with children die all the time of cancer and care accidents. All deaths that cut lives short before they are complete are especially sad.

When people reach the age of eighty, their likelihood of dying increases significantly. Both my parent died in their late eighties. We were really sad to lose them, and we miss them, but there was a sense in which their lives were complete. They had done what they were put on earth to do. Their best years were behind them. Nothing can replace them, but the gap is filled by the next generation of grandchildren blossoming forth. That is how life works.

The reality is that people in rest homes die all the time, and often quite soon after they move in. In normal times a third of all deaths in New Zealand occur in rest homes.

My parents both died in a rest home. I remember the day when they moved into it. It was a relief because they could not cope in the place where they had been living. However, there was also a pang of sadness, because they and we knew that their lives were winding down, and they would not be able to keep on supporting the huge number of people that they related to in service of the Lord. It seemed like part of their lives was already dying. In some ways, death is a process, just like growing up. (For some, a virus will significantly speed up that process.)

While they lived in the rest home, my parents were at peace, because they did not fear death. They knew that because they had trusted in Jesus, death is not the end, but a gateway to fullness of life with Jesus. Death is not the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is not being prepared for death when it comes.

God’s people must be careful that they do not caught get up in the fear of death. For us, death is not the end, but a door to a new and better life. Death is not my greatest fear. My greatest fear is finishing my life without having completed everything that called me to do.