The Human Experience of Death

We have just experienced a very hard event in our community. A little 4th grade, 10 year old boy passed away from an aneurism on his brain. Surgery was attempted to relieve the pressure and bleeding but it was either too late or the damage was so severe that it did not have the desired effect. Many now will be asking the question why!

I just read a statement on my Facebook page about a young child who had passed away and many were sending sympathies to the family members. I do not know if the recipients were direct (mother and father) or close relatives but again the question was why.

Why could God allow such a thing to happen to a small child with a whole life ahead of them? Especially when according to our standards there should be so many others that deserve such a fate. I sometimes find the answers we give are about as heartbreaking as the event itself.

I do not believe God needed another flower in heaven or any of the other superficial statements we as humans produce to either make ourselves feel better or defend God.. I do not believe that God would purposefully rip a mother’s heart in half by selfishly taking a child away by such a death. The fact is we live in a world where sin has separated us from perfection. The very creation we live in suffers from this fact. Paul says that it groans for the day. . . Because we are human we face sickness, illness, genetics that predispose us to certain health issues. That is the sad truth.

However it is in this very truth that we are able to find grace and peace in these events. It was into this world that Christ came and lived. It was in this body that He felt the pain and sting of death. He knew what it was to see a friend die, to hear of a cousin beheaded and probably (argument from lack of evidence) to know what it was like to bury a father. He stood at the bedsides of children who had dies and it is because of this that we can find His grace and peace in these events.

It hurts to be human sometimes but it is in this condition that we can understand what Christ has done and will do for each of us if we but accept His grace and peace in faith. There is no greater peace.