I know what it feels like to literally be dying, because of the incurable/terminal cancer diagnosis I received in November 2009. You feel alone, even with all those loving family members surrounding you with warmth and encouragement; you still feel alone. As I recall, I could remember thinking about the idea—the unknowable idea—of being disembodied; I think that was one of the greatest fears of the unknown that I experienced as I then contemplated my apparently impending death. The Heidelberg Catechism reads:

Lord’s Day 1

Q & A 1

1 What is your only comfort in life and in death? A. That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Reality like this brings hope and comfort when faced with your own mortality, but it doesn’t always assuage the fear and anxiety of the heaviness of it all; you’re still scared: at least I was. I didn’t want to leave my wife, and at that point, two young children. Yet the Lord, with his still small voice, can (and does) speak sweet encouragement into your heart.

I have followed many people now who have been diagnosed with the same cancer I was: desmoplastic small round cell tumor (DSRCT), sarcoma. Most of them have died; one of them, a dear brother, just died yesterday: Brad Booth. He had a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ, and leaves behind two beautiful (and young) children, and his wife, Stacey—please hold them up in prayer.

Death is indeed the last enemy that we wait upon Jesus to finally vanquish at his coming; this is the Christian’s hope. The world doesn’t have this hope—well they do, they just haven’t repented to that reality—as such they face the sting of death without the genuine hope offered by the blood of Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine facing death without Jesus, the firstborn from the dead; there is nothing noble about attempting to face your own mortality without Christ. And yet I sat next to many in the chemo-clinic and in the cancer ward who didn’t want to hear about the hope of Jesus Christ. That experience, of people rejecting the reality of Christ for them even in the face of their impending death, in the midst of their suffering, reminded me of this passage found in  the book of Revelation:

⁸ The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. ⁹ They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.[1]

As I sat there wondering at why they would not want to hear about Jesus Christ, the reality of the hardened human heart—that is beyond the point of feeling (Eph. 4)—was given illustration in a tragic way; the scriptural reality was given illustration.

Death, if the Lord continues to tarry, is something we will all face. As Christians we have the hope of the resurrection and that even though we die we shall live (Jn 11). For people without Christ they not only face this life without Christ, but even more disconcerting they face their own death without Christ; a hopeless abyss where there genuinely is no hope for those who enter that final reality.

[1] NIV, Revelation 16:8-9.