What does death look like, and what is my calling in the face of death? At its most basic, death is the cessation of those bodily functions that enable us to have some measure of choice over our response to the reality around us. It comes at a variety of levels. When we have all of our physical, mental, and emotional faculties, we can make a variety of choices, but as we lose some of thos faculties, our choices become limited. When Jesus was nailed to the cross, he could no longer choose to stay or run away from the Roman guards but he could still choose what he thought, and felt about his stituation. It was only when he breathed his last, that is his body and mind ceased to function, that he could no longer have the ability to make any choices.
This, to me, defines death. It is a total loss of control. It may also be a good explanation of what it means in the Aposltes’ Creed, “That he descended into Hell.” If God is the creator of life, then to be in Hell is to be as far from God, or life, as is possible. It is to totally remove your capacity to make any choice of your response to what you experience.
Some will fight this with everything that they have, while others may simply give up in despair. The third choice is not a choice of despair but rather a choice of hope but it is a hope that you cannot control. When Jesus said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” he was acknowleding that death was a state beyond which he had control but he did believe that there was one who is not defeated by death and that he could trust that God.
It is that type of trust that I want to have when that moment of my death occurs. I don’t want to cling to life or give up in despair. I want to commend my spirit in trust. My vocation at the time that such a reality approaches is to reach out in such trust.
