Cartoons can get you thinking. Today’s cartoon by Pat Bagley in The Salt Lake Tribune shows a man and woman looking at her phone. “Oh, no! This earthquake in Turkey…terrible!” Behind them looms the Grim Reaper, hooded in black, scythe in hand, and printed on his robe: Wasatch Fault. It could happen there. It can happen here. South of St. Louis is the New Madrid fault, the worst recorded American earthquake east of the Rockies, 1811-1812.
The possibility of sudden death fills us with fear. Martin Luther wrote a hymn, “In the very midst of life / Snares of death surround us” (Lutheran Service Book, 755). The Great Litany prays, “from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us” (Book of Common Prayer, 149). Serious prayers. Can we reduce or even eliminate our fear of sudden death?
“From dying suddenly and unprepared.” People told Jesus about Galileans slaughtered by Pontius Pilate. Jesus then brought up 18 people killed when a tower fell on them. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5). Think that through. Does that mean that if I confess my sins and receive forgiveness, I won’t die a sudden death? It can’t mean that. I suspect sincere Christians are among the 5000 dead in Turkey. Jesus’ thought is deeper. There is a life after death, an eternal life only for those who have repented.
How can we shake off the fear of sudden death? Not by focusing on death or life but on Jesus. Christianity is more than a menu of how to deal with this fear or that. It’s more than a 12-step program to improve your life. The best Christianity locks in on God’s love to us in Jesus, whatever might happen to us. “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).
“Come when it may, He’ll shield me, / To Him I totally yield me” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 526:3).