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| My parents' burial plot, Tepic Mexico (large white tomb in the centre) |
We have been attending a liturgical church for almost a year and find the journey through the church calendar with its emphasis on the gospel message, scripture and prayer to be very meaningful. Last Sunday was Transfiguration Sunday where we read the account of Peter, James and John as they saw Jesus on the mountain in his radiant, divine glory when he spoke with Moses and Elijah. This pinnacle experience was followed by Jesus' return to Jerusalem and the difficult journey to his death a few weeks later. Today is Ash Wednesday where we recognize our mortality and start a forty-day journey to the cross before we celebrate the resurrection.
I just finished a book by Canadian physician Blair Bigham called Death Interrupted: How Modern Medicine is Complicating the Way We Die. He started his career as a paramedic and went on to become an ER and ICU specialist. In the book he describes that starting in the 1950s with the polio epidemic, ventilators were invented (1958), CPR was developed (1960), modern kidney dialysis was available to a few patients (1964), organ transplants became more reliable (1980s), and heart-lung bypass (ECMO) machines came into use in the 1970s. I was discussing the book with one of our respirologists this week and she commented that advances in medical technology have outpaced the ability of our public health system to pay for these kinds of treatments. It is interesting that all these technologies have come into use during my lifetime. Dr. Bigham describes how it has become difficult to determine when death has occurred when people are hooked up to machines. Societies with access to modern medical procedures have become increasingly death-averse creating ethical dilemmas for physicians and patients. On one hand, people are trying to avoid death, and on the other, people in Canada are seeking assisted medical death because they want to avoid a prolonged period of suffering.
Lent is a time to reflect on two types of death; physical death and spiritual death. In church today we read the paradoxical description Paul gives of his life in 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:10 where he says at the end of the passage that he is
"...dying, and yet we live on;
beaten, and yet not killed;
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing;
poor, yet making many rich;
having nothing, and yet possessing everything."
Psalm 103 starts with the promises
"Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."
but further on it seems contradictory when it says,
"So the Lord pities those who fear Him.
For He knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting."
Last week, on February 14th, my friend and co-worker died of brain cancer. I talked to her at church in the fall just before she started palliative care and she described her initial fight to live with surgery, radiation, and immunotherapy when she was diagnosed in 2020. But she told me she was tired and ready to die and was stopping treatment as the cancer spread. Her faith sustained her through the last few difficult months. Yesterday another close friend was shocked to find his adult son dead in a chair, a sudden death from a vascular event. We are constantly reminded of our mortality and must live in light of that awareness. Yet we also live with the hope that comes from the promise of resurrection.
My religious upbringing focused so much on miracles and healing that death was seen as a great enemy and a sign of insufficient faith. I have watched family members, sadly including my mother, who felt their faith had faltered and evil had triumphed as death approached. "Prosperity theology" teaches that it is always God's will for us to have financial and physical well-being and that God rewards our faith, giving, and positive confession. Unfortunately, this teaching is spreading in third-world countries where people are poor and without access to adequate health care. I was exposed to so much death in my professional career that I questioned these unbiblical doctrines. I remember telling my mother that I had never witnessed a proven miracle of healing in response to prayer that was more than the natural healing the human body is capable of with proper self-care or a response to appropriate medical treatment. We are "fearfully and wonderfully made"!
Ash Wednesday marks the start of a time of repentance, fasting and prayer in anticipation of the joy of the resurrection and Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death.
...earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
in sure and certain hope of the
Resurrection to eternal life,
through our Lord Jesus Christ
(The Order for the Burial of the Dead, BCP)
I get a new Lenten devotional each year and this is my choice for 2023.
The first two readings have been excellent (I love poetry- it may not be
everyone's favourite style). Click the picture for a link.
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