The Best Way to Prepare for Your Death, and Perhaps the Death of Someone You Love

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The Earth teems with death. Death from war. Death at the murderous hands of others. Death by accident. Death by stupidity. Death because of disease. Death because of starvation or dehydration. Death from suicide.  Death, death and more death. It’s everywhere.  And yet somehow we’ve managed to temporarily separate ourselves from it. We rarely see it -- unless it is the dramatic, gory, violent and theatrical deaths of the movies, or the distant, impersonal deaths of the television news.  But most of us don’t intersect the occurrence of death at the frequency (or the intimacy) with which it actually happens. This is especially true for those of us who live in the United States.  We are insulated from it.  Many of us fear it with great intensity. In fact, I think it was Woody Allen who quipped that he wasn’t afraid of death, but he didn’t want to be around when it happened either! But the truth is that for all of us, the bodies we now occupy will all succumb to death eventually. There is no escaping it. We will be there when it happens. Wiser men than me have noted that death isn’t something for which we should give an ounce of fear.  The real object of our fear, they have argued, is a life not fully lived – particularly if it wasn’t fully lived due to a fear of death.

Paul knew this. He argued in Philippians 1:21 that to live was Christ and to die was gain. A preacher I heard this week explained that verse this way:  He said, if you live for pleasure and for its moment, then death will be a loss because once dead, pleasure and the moment will no longer be available to you.  But if you live for something greater than fleshly and temporary pleasure – like living for Christ – then death will be gain because you will be united with Christ and all of the pleasures he has to offer.

So the best way to prepare for death is to live life to its fullest. Waste no moments. Live as Jesus would have you live.  To live is Christ, Paul teaches.  It is to preach his gospel, to spread his news, to be his hands and feet.  When you do this, death will have no sting (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).  Interestingly, living this way best helps prepare others for their eventuality as well.