Her name is Doris. She is waiting to die. At least that's what she told my friend who has a soft spot for the old lady every time she accompanies me to the old folks' home after our Saturday afternoons with the homeless in Petaling Street. I regularly visit my late husband's godmother who was placed there after a fall that broke her hip a couple of years ago. I think my dear sister in Christ has a knack for making friends with old folks. Me, I just chat with my god-ma but my friend goes one step further; after finding out that my god-ma is into sewing, she ferrets out DIY projects to keep her busy. It's such a meaningful gesture, for surely it must be so boring sitting around day in day out with nothing to occupy one's time or mind except stare at the TV or the walls in the home. Which is why we both understand why Aunty Doris as we call her is simply waiting to die. She's just an ordinary plain old woman, unlike my god-ma, she's not into sewing or TV, her eyes are too dim to read, so all she does is sit confined to her wheel-chair and wait and wait....
I try not to get affected after every visit to the home; but I would be made of stone if I were to claim I don't feel for these old folks in their twilight years. Yet surely the shadow of death is always hovering unseen over us all, young or old, anyway; if you believe statistics, apparently some 150,000 people die daily all over the world, which works out to be 107 deaths per minute or 1.78 deaths per second. I dunno how accurate that is, but I do know one thing. When death calls, tears flow, hearts grieve over the often shocking senselessness of it all. These days, there seem to be a lot of tears shed in M'sia....over the continuing painful saga of MH370 still being played out, over the untimely demise of a true patriot, a people's hero, Karpal Singh in a car crash, and in another corner of the world in South Korea over a ferry capsize; which took down some 300 youngsters out on holiday trip, now never to return home to loved ones.
Tears and more tears....it's the response of our human nature, when words are inadequate to express the sorrow of the surviving and bereaved over lives snatched and stolen away by death. Even God weeps; the shortest verse in the Bible is Jesus wept (John 11:35), which just goes to show He's not an 'absentee' God - He knows and cares about our human suffering. Jesus was crying over the death of His best friend, Lazarus, whom He loved. Ordinary mortals are expected to accept that death is the end of it all, no matter how well-lived the life that was. We talk about legacies; indeed great and to be lauded are the legacies of people who have impacted society for good. Still legacies are for the living to honor the dead, just like funerals are actually for the living to have closure. But Jesus refused to stop there. When the people saw His tears for Lazarus, they remarked "Behold, how He loved him" and knowing that He could work miracles, they wondered aptly, "Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?" (John 11: 36-37). Surely Jesus could have healed His sick friend; after all He had healed so many others. Likewise we ask the same question today - if there is a God and if He is all good and powerful, can't (or why can't) He override death's sentence?
In fact Jesus waited for days seemingly doing nothing instead of rushing to his friend's bedside immediately. It was clear Jesus 'purposely' let Lazarus die and rot. But thankfully, that's not where He left him. For after 4 days, Jesus went over to resurrect his by-then well and truly very dead friend and brought him out of a smelly grave; calling his name with 1 spectacular command, "Lazarus, come out" (John 11:43), putting to rest any doubts whatsoever that He had all power over death of all individuals. This was by no means the only instance in the Bible where Jesus raised the dead back to life. But His own resurrection after dying on the cross stands as the miracle of all miracles, forming the foundation-stone of every Christian's hope and assurance that Jesus is who He claims to be, and that there is indeed an after-life after death After all it is one thing for Jesus to walk around raising dead people, but quite another when He Himself rose alive from death without any human help.
Sophisticated thinkers, smart scientists, logical reasoning 'normal' human beings scoff and find it incredulous, dumb, or downright insane that anyone would believe the dead can rise from the grave. Even back in his days, Apostle Paul remarked to a disbelieving royal audience, "Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?" (Acts 26:8) Why, indeed. Apparently in Africa, resurrections are nothing spectacular - they happen all the time...perhaps there is something about the Africans' faith...Anyway, there will always the die-hard skeptic, finding all sorts of reasons not to believe, dismissing miracles as medical misdiagnoses, quirks, cheap 'magic tricks', staged shows by charlatans out to impress the gullible for fame or fortune. Well, they aren't the ones who died, they aren't the family who witnessed the events, they aren't the doctors at the scene. I am not either. And tho I may not have seen a dead person come alive, I have seen enough supernatural stuff to know there is an all-powerful God at work; unseen but very real. He can't be "tested" for validity in a laboratory; forget about finger-printing Him with a machine. To requests for proof of existence or identity, He will point to the Holy Bible. We either accept Him on His terms, or we don't accept Him at all. In secular language, He's the Boss. Well, duh, if He is God, He should be.
So rather than spend my life getting hung up on the how's, why's and wherefore's of God, I would rather enjoy His presence, be encompassed in His love, and rest in His everlasting arms, secure in the heart-knowledge that my life will not end with death. That's the hope which keeps me in eager anticipation of the day I die, especially as Easter season rolls around, and once again the story of Calvary's Cross replays in all churches all over the world. Can any rational human mind believe it? Should we? Isn't all this talk about Jesus dying for the world's sin and being resurrected from death all just so much.....'talk'?? Is the hope He offers a vain delusion, an empty boast, a mere clutching-at-straws, an emotional escapism and denial of death's grip? Well, as Apostle Paul puts it, "For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?" (Romans 8:24). Certainly that's the very nature of hope - that which is unseen. If it turns out there really is no after-life, it matters not, for then I will be as dead as dead can be. But I'd rather believe, why shouldn't I, when what Jesus Christ offers is the only alternative option available to defeat the death that will come for me one day.
Unlike aunty Doris, I am not into sitting around waiting to die, but I can look in death's face without any sadness, fear or stoic resignation. On the contrary I expect it in joyful anticipation, certain that it is not the end, but the beginning of something new and more awesome than anything this earthly life has to offer me. I may not leave much of a legacy, or anything, behind when I am laid out in a coffin, but that is not important, because I won't be around on this planet any longer anyway. But what is and should be more important is knowing where I am headed next....confident that glory (and I am not talking about the glory bestowed on man by man) and not death is the final word of operation in my life.
"I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!".... Job 19:25-27
