'In the midst of life we are in death'

In one of our fortnightly 'Services of Prayer and Reflection', organised jointly by the Anglican and Catholic church communities of Blaenau Ffestiniog, Revd Roland offered some thoughts on Christian beliefs and practices concerning mortality and life after death.

I'd like to say a few words today about death. Not about how we cope with the grief and emotions of death - there are vast amounts of literature on that subject - but how we try to understand the religious/theological significance of death.

Every human being, every society throughout human history has thought about and worried about what happens to us when we die. So much of the physical evidence left to us by our ancestors involves the way we attend to and bury our dead. 

From simple graves, name and headstone, perhaps one or two much loved mementos, to gigantic pyramids with riches beyond our imagining. Life and death is significant. We seek to
make sense of mortality.

There is a widespread belief in some sort of existence after death, generally involving an idea of heaven and hell; and a heaven and hell which; people feel, is earned. You live a 'good' life, you go to heaven. You live a 'bad' life - its downhill all the way to hell! 

I don't personally think that is the Christian view of mortality, and I know that a lot of people today would find those ideas abhorrent. But it is the view, the impression, I still get from listening to so many people out there in our communities - even in this secular age.

There is in the human psyche a very deep sense of good and evil, and a sense of a price to pay, or a reward, after we die. 

Its not my view of life and death, but I encounter that attitude in society almost every day.

'Hey Roland, paid a rhegu - don't swear- you won't be going to
heaven!' 

I know it is said in jest, but...

Death in the Ancient World 

The other week I watched a fascinating programme on TV about the ancient Egyptian view of death. We perhaps think of the ancient Egyptians (and other ancient civilizations) as being heathen, primitive peoples, living in cruel, hierarchical, amoral societies. 

Actually, as we read from their literature, especially regarding their attitude to death, the ancient Egyptians had a very deep sense of morality, of right and wrong. In their Book of the Dead the Egyptians imagine what happens to us in the afterlife, when we die.

It begins with a series of examinations as to the moral character of the deceased:

'In life were you honest in your dealings?'

'Did you avoid coveting your neighbours wife/husband?'

'Did you care for your neighbour?'

20 questions - and if you can't answer positively to all of them, then there is no eternal paradise for you my boy! You have to have lived a good life.

Moses and the Ten Commandments

The questions and interrogations read like a copy of the Ten Commandments. That is why the programme fascinated me so much. 

Moses Receives the Ten Commandments by Gebhard Fugel (1863-1939)

The Ten Commandments are the very basis of the Israelite/ Jewish and, later, the Christian view of life. You could argue that the Ten Commandments underpin our whole Western legal system and our view of right and wrong.

And, hey: we received these life-guidelines from Moses, a man who spent much of his formative years living in Egypt! He became the second most powerful man in Egypt, second only to the Pharaoh. Moses would have been immersed in Egyptian thought and culture, a culture that was obsessed with the afterlife and 'right and wrong'.

That makes one think.

Yes, the inspiration for the Ten Commandments came from God, holy inspired ideas of right and wrong. But the ideas were being incubated in Egypt and in the mind of Moses, long before Moses climbed Mount Sinai. God the divine human force was at work in the minds of human beings, long before Moses appeared on the scene with his tablets of stone. 

Moses, the Jews, Christians, don't have a monopoly on a sense of 'right and wrong', and about having a relationship with the divine. I mention the Egyptians, not because I believe in or follow their beliefs, but because it illustrates the development of the human mindset.

What makes Christianity different? 

Christianity's distinctiveness is that it rescues us from that
simplistic, clinical 'You are bad - go to hell; you are good - sweet heaven for you, my friend!' way of looking at life. 

In the Christian tradition, Jesus, Son of God, dies on behalf of all people. He pays the price of human failings, so we don't have to! We are rescued by the love of God, instead of being punished.

So guess what? We don't have to be perfect (which is impossible anyway). We don't have to pass the Egyptian 20 questions test, or the Christian 10 commandments requirement. In a sense we are lifted from despair, Jesus shows us the way - through love and through loving sacrifice.

After 65 years of life, I still find that message powerful. It is
God's grace, freely given - provided of course that we human beings don't spoil it by turning Christ's salvation into an exclusive, self-satisfied club; the 'them and us' culture, which for me, simply destroys Christianity. 

Jesus' message is a universal message, a spiritual message, which touches every human being on our planet. Jesus addresses the deepest spiritual realities of our lives and our deaths. He takes the focus away from our moral failings or successes, and simply overcomes through the power of love. 

Halleluiah for that!

The Sermon on the Mount: Jesus' manifesto for life

If you need evidence for this, read again Jesus' manifesto for life in his Beatitudes and his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). No impossible Ten Commandments here, but simply a plea for humanity.

The Sermon on the Mount (Cosimo Rosselli, 1439-1507)

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, those who show love through mourning, the meek, the merciful, the peacemakers, even the persecuted. 'Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven' (Matt 5:12).

I know that in this address I've only scratched the surface of the huge subject of human mortality. Next time I'd like to dig a little deeper into spirituality and human imaginings into the nature of life after death. A big ask!

O Lord God give us enquiring and humble hearts, that in love we might know thee a little better - in Jesus Christ's name. Amen.