A DREADFUL PROSPECT, A DESIRABLE END

God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day... He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment. He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on him; his violence comes down on his own head.

Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord. O Lord, your hand is lifted high, and they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

The Lord... is righteous; he does no wrong. Morning by morning he dispenses his justice, and every new day he does not fail, yet the unrighteous know no shame... 'Therefore wait for me,' declares the Lord, 'for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them -- all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.'

Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. I will warn you whom to fear; fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell.

... our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in blazing fire... he will do justice upon those who refuse to acknowledge God and upon those who will not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal ruin, cut off from the presence of the Lord... Destroyed they shall be, because they did not open their minds to love of the truth, so as to find salvation.

Therefore God puts them under a delusion, which works upon them to believe the lie, so that they may all be brought to judgment, all who do not believe the truth but make sinfulness their deliberate choice.

... there were loud voices in heaven, which said: 'The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever.' And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying: 'We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry; and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great -- and for destroying those who destroy the earth.'

(Psalm 7:11,14-16, NIV; Isaiah 26:10-11, NIV; Zephaniah 3:5,8, NIV; Luke 12:4-5, NEB; 2 Thessalonians 1:7b-9; 2:10b-12, NEB; Revelation 11:15-18, NIV)


The prospect of a judgment that is final and a condemnation that is irrevocable causes distress to all sensitive persons. The understandable recoil of mind and emotion has led many to ignore or deny these teachings. Yet for those whose knowledge of God and of final reality are derived from divine speaking rather than human speculating, there is no possibility of denying judgment and hell, which are all too clearly attested in the teaching of Jesus and of scripture generally. Moreover, they are not found there as an extraneous or unassimilated extra, but as an integral part of the whole biblical portrayal of the nature of God and of the reality he has made and is making. Seen in this light, some of our distress at the prospect of judgment is a measure of the discrepancy between the biblical revelation of the character of God and our own more sentimental notions. Here, as in so many other things, the revealed reality of God cuts across our preferences.

Yet there is a distress at the inevitability of judgment that is both valid and necessary (see, for example, Luke 19:41-44). Such pain is both an index of the momentous, even awesome character of human choice and responsibility and a measure of the horror. of grace spurned and destruction embraced.

In the Bible the certainty of judgment to come evokes joy as well as tears. Most honest readers of the Bible would have to feel dismayed by the way in which some passages rejoice in this prospect. Yet closer inspection shows that the authors are not motivated by the almost ghoulish pleasure at the terrors of judgment that has been evident all too often in Christian history. Rather, their joy is the result of a passionate devotion to the honour of God and a zeal for the triumph of his purposes. His judgment is prayed for and rejoiced in because it means both the vindication of his truth and holiness in the face of all that is false and wicked, and also the renewal and restoration of the creation, eliminating all that is rebellious and fully implementing his righteous rule. They know that the alternative to judgment is a creation which becomes a labyrinth of evil, in which all fixed points are finally obscured by layer upon layer of duplicity or wiped away in the escalating spiral of violence. (Any good spy novel will provide you with a glimpse into such a world.)

It is no light thing, therefore, to pray regularly for the coming of God's kingdom, for to do so is to pray for the execution of final judgment. The believer faces this prospect with tears and yet greets it with joy.

It is no light thing, either, to relate daily to persons who are being prepared for glory or who are preparing themselves for destruction!


There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'

C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

The love of God, with arms extended on a cross, bars the way to hell. But if that love is ignored, rejected and finally refused, there comes a time when love can only weep while man pushes past into the self-chosen alienation which Christ went to the
cross to avert.

Michael Green, The Empty Cross of Jesus

Hell is not like a gaol where prisoners are longing to be free but like a sit-in where the protesters have barricaded themselves in.

Hugh Silvester, Arguing with God

The agents of hell disappear, the human, they shrink and dissolve Into dust on the wind, forgotten, unmemorable; only is here
The white flat face of Death, God's silent servant,
And behind the face of Death and Judgment
And behind the Judgment the Void, more horrid than active shapes of hell;
Emptiness, absence, separation from God;
The horror of the effortless journey, to the empty land
Which is no land, only emptiness, absence, the Void,
Where those who were men can no longer turn the mind
To distraction, delusion, escape into dream, pretence,
Where the soul is no longer deceived, for there are no objects,
no tones,
No colours, no forms to distract, to divert the soul
From seeing itself, foully united forever, nothing with nothing,
Not what we call death, but what beyond death is not death,
We fear, we fear.

T.S. Eliot, Murder in the Cathedral

... God's judgments alone stand between us and a universal tyranny. If the effects of original sin were allowed to work themselves out unchecked, man's inhumanity to man would know no bounds. Such elements of stability, freedom, mercy and goodness we enjoy, we owe to the operation of God's righteous judgments among us.

J.W. Wenham, The Goodness of God

Heaven and its happiness are wrongly conceived as immunity from judgment instead of joy in the consummation of judgment in righteousness and holiness for ever.

P.T. Forsyth, The Work of Christ


It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Proposes a Toast



Lord, have I over-reacted? Have I been so conscious of the 'so heavenly-minded, no earthly use' danger that I have lived too much as though there were no deadline and destination ahead of us all? You know how hard I have to fight in my work against the 'tyranny of the urgent', seeking to prevent the immediate from crowding out the important. Have 1, in the midst of all this, succumbed to the same tyranny in another way by now allowing the immediate to shape the ultimate ? Have I been so concerned to distance myself from ghastly caricatures of biblical teaching that the reality and finality of judgment have no real place in my working theology? Have I related to individuals only in terms of the day and its needs, and not also in the light of the eternal destiny to which we are moving? I have tried hard not to allow my capacity for compassion and grief to be dulled by constant exposure to news and pictures of human suffering. Have 1, in the midst of all this, allowed my capacity for grief and outrage to be dulled by constant exposure to the human wickedness that slights the honour of your name, spurns your grace, and rebels against your wise and righteous rule? Do I long for the end of physical evil more than I long for the end of moral evil? Lord, you know me. Give me grace to know myself.

Lord, correct me. Restore the balance and perspective I need, not so that I may pride myself on my neat, orderly theology, but so that I may live in line with your truth, allowing each day to be shaped in the right way by the last Day.

Lord, renew me. Give me a new sense of awe at the burning purity of your holiness, and a fresh sense of zeal for the honour of your name.

Lord, use me. Help me to live and serve in a way that alerts people to the reality and finality of the ultimate horizons by which all our lives are bounded. Give me grace, where there is opportunity, to give bold but gracious testimony to the One who rescues us from the coming wrath.



A Benediction

May God himself direct and protect you this day. Approach your work this day in such a way that the last Day will show that you did not run or labour in vain. Approach your decisions this day as someone who is to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Approach your relationships as one who is dealing with those who will be 'immortal horrors or everlasting splendours'. Above all, approach the throne of grace with awe and with confidence, to receive from the God who is a consuming fire both mercy and grace to help in time of need. Amen.

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 251-256

WHERE IS YOUR STING?

Where is your sting? - (I Corinthians15:55)

There in the land of Moab, Moses the servant of Yahweh died as Yahweh decreed; he buried him in the valley opposite Bethpeor; but to this day no one has even found his grave.

Where could I go to escape your spirit? Where could I flee from your presence? If I climb the heavens, you are there; there, too, if I lie in Sheol.

There is a season for everything... A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting... A time for killing, a time for healing... A time for tears, a time, for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

Where is your plague, Death? Where are your scourges, Sheol?

Happy those who mourn; they shall be comforted.

After Jesus had taken the vinegar he said, 'It is accomplished'; and hanging his head he gave up his spirit.

As they were stoning him, Stephen said in invocation, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Then he knelt down and said aloud, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them'; and with these words he fell asleep.

Now we are seeing a dim reflection in a mirror; but then we shall be seeing face to face. The knowledge that I have now is imperfect; but then I shall know as fully as I am known.

Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would bring me something more... I want to be gone and be with Christ, which would be very much the better.

Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised.

Jesus said, 'I am the resurrection, If anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?'

(Deuteronomy 34:5-6; Psalm 139:7-8; Ecclesiastes 3:1-4; Hosea 13:14; Matthew 5:4; John 19:30; Acts 7:59-60; 1 Corinthians 13:12; Philippians 1:21 and 23; Luke 2:29; John 11:25-26 -- all JB)



'Are you prepared to kill?' recruit to the armed forces was recently put on the spot with this question, to test his commitment to serve. Equally relevant and even more searching would be the question, 'Are you prepared to die?' In an armed encounter, you will not always be the lucky one. Or is death such a bad escape after all?, 'Death, where is your sting?,'

On the subject of death, the Bible is clear, firm and uncompromising. Moses, David, Simeon, Stephen, Paul and many other biblical characters welcomed its approach. Jesus pointed to a greater life beyond death and offered himself to Martha, Thomas and others, as the 'way' to eternity.

Many Christians today, particularly those engaged in pastoral ministry, live in regular contact with this dying. As a process or an event, it's often shunned in modern Western society. Information is withheld, pretences maintained, farewells foregone. What is the role of the pastor at the death-bed? To be emotionally involved or professionally immune? Yet he or she is the one person who can inject warmth, truth and hope into the experience of those who are watching, waiting and dying.

We can, of course, learn so much about death and dying from the Two-thirds World. Asians, Africans, Pacific Islanders, mostly live closer to the possibility of death -- and so perhaps grasp more fully the meaning and purpose and value of life. Certainly they have less fear!

Death is probably most difficult to accept when it occurs far away, in situations where there can be no watching or waiting or sharing. Grieving at a distance is a hard experience. It drives you back to a sense of utter dependence on the God who 'gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ'.

A doctor said to me recently, 'Having been through the interesting process of dying with so many patients, I can hardly wait to share the experience myself!' Death is an adventure, a vital staging-post, on our pilgrimage. Yes, I am prepared to die!



Nine officers were killed by IRA mortar bombs last week in the worst attack against the Northern Ireland police since the present troubles began. Another officer, a Roman Catholic, was shot dead this week as he was about to enter a church for mass, bringing the total of killings in the province to eighteen in just over two weeks.

The Guardian, March 10, 1985

Death in itself, is nothing; but we fear, to be we know not what, we know not where.

John Dryden

What's brave, what's noble,
Let's do it after the high Roman fashion,
And make death proud to take us.

William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.

Tennyson, The Two Voices

Why should man be in love with his fetters, though of gold? Art thou drowned in security? Then I say thou art perfectly dead. For though thou movest, yet thy soul is buried within thee, and thy good angel either forsakes his guard or sleeps. There is nothing under heaven, saving a true friend (who cannot be counted within the number of movables), unto which my heart doth lean. And this dear freedom hath begotten me this peace, that I mourn not for that end which must be, nor spend one wish to have one minute added to the uncertain date of my years. It was no mean apprehension of Lucian, who says of Mennippus, that in his travels through hell, he knew not the kings of the earth from other men, but only by their louder cryings and tears: which were fostered in them through the remorseful memory of the good days they had seen, and the fruitful havings which they so unwillingly left behind them: he that was well seated, looked back at his portion, and was loth to forsake his farm; and others either minding marriages, pleasures, profit, or preferment, desired to be excused from Death's banquet: they had made an appointment with earth, looking at the blessings, not the hand that enlarged them, forgetting how unclothedly they came hither, or with what naked ornaments they were arrayed.

Francis Bacon, Essay on Death

It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an Oak in the Chimney are no Epitaph of the Oak to tell me how high or how large that was. It tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust of great persons' graves is speechless too, it says nothing, it distinguishes nothing: as soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not, as of a Prince thou couldest not look upon, will trouble thine eyes, if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the Churchyard into the Church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the Churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce, This is the Patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian bran. So is the death of Jesabel (Jesabel was a Queen) expressed; They shall not say, this is Jesabel; not only not wonder what it is, nor pity that it should be, but they shall not say, they shall not know, This is Jesabel.

John Donne, Death the Leveller

Should this be found I want these facts recorded. Oates' last thoughts were of his Mother, but immediately before he took pride in thinking that his regiment would be pleased with the bold way in which he met his death. We can testify to his bravery. He has borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint, and to the very last was able and willing to discuss outside subjects. He did not -- would not -- give up hope till the very end. He was a brave soul. This was the end. He slept through the night before last, hoping not to wake; but he woke in the morning -- yesterday. It was blowing a blizzard. He said, 'I am just going outside and may be some time.' He went out into the blizzard and we have not seen him since.

Robert Scott, Death of Captain Oates

The disease may, however, be one of those from which there is no certainty that the patient will recover. I am reminded of an old friend, a woman of boundless energy and optimism. One might have wondered if her faith, when she was in good health and engaged in a full and useful life of spiritual service, was only the reflection of her simple and confident nature. I saw her later, immobilised on her bed of pain. In answer to her direct question, her doctor had informed her of the inevitable diagnosis he must make of her condition. She was preparing herself joyfully for death. She was more radiant than ever. Visitors flocked to see her, and found in her a testimony that was more striking than she had given in active life and health.

Paul Tournier, The Person Reborn

~~~~~~~~~~~~

O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, who at this evening hour didst rest in the sepulchre, and didst thereby sanctify the grave to be a bed of hope to thy people; make us so to abound in sorrow for our sins, which were the cause of thy passion, that when our bodies lie in the dust, our souls may live with thee; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, our God, world without end. Amen.

The Office of Compline

Jesus, confirm my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee; still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up thy gift in me.

Ready for all thy perfect will, my acts of faith and love repeat, till death thy endless mercies seal and make the sacrifice complete.

Charles Wesley



A Benediction

Go forth upon thy journey, O Christian soul; in the Name of God the Father, who created thee; in the Name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the Name of God the Holy Ghost, who hath sanctified thee.

May thy portion this day be in peace and thy dwelling in the heavenly Jerusalem.

Still Waters, Deep Waters ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 129-134

THE LAST ENEMY TO BE OVERCOME

Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15: 51-56, RSV)


Paul's great triumphant shout of joy, well-known enough, is better known still because of the bass solo version in Handel's Messiah -- so well-known perhaps that we overlook the depth of meaning.

For what can it be, this victory over death given to us? Not that since Jesus died and rose again we do not die. Of course we will die, all of us. Nor that we simply disregard death, pretend it does not happen, call it by another name. True, some may be able to welcome it:

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate around the world serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each
Sooner or later, delicate death.

Prais'd be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love -- but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Walt Whitman, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd

That is appropriate enough for someone who has lived a long and fruitful life, or for someone whose suffering has become unbearable. But what about the violent death of an accident victim, the despairing death of a suicide, the slow starvation of a child who never had a chance In life?

Not for nothing did Paul write of death as the enemy, the last enemy to be overcome, an enemy not just in itself but because of the way it can threaten us. It has the power to distort our relation to God, the source of life itself.

The very fact of death -- its arbitrary nature, to whom it comes and when -- can threaten faith in God. So the cry is heard when a loved one dies, 'Why him, why her, where's the justice in that?' Or the cry when one does not die soon enough, lingering on in agony, 'How can there be a loving and caring God?'

And the fear of death can threaten faithfulness to God. 'Life's so short,' we hear it said. 'Why make it miserable by having to be obedient to God? You only live once; live it up while you can.'

So death is an enemy, not just because it stands at the end of life, but because it has this capacity to invade life, diminishing life's possibilities in the present. Death is the last enemy to be overcome.

But, Paul is now affirming, death has been overcome. Not that we do not die, but that death does not have the last word. Not that death has been eliminated, but that its power to destroy us has been destroyed. Not that death is no longer real, but it is no longer to be feared.

For people fear death because they do not know what is in store on the other side of death, or know only too well that if they are judged, then they will be found wanting. Our wrongdoing in this world will cut us off from life in the next. The sting of death is sin; sinners are afraid to die.

But as forgiven sinners we need have no such fear, for the great good news of the gospel is that God does not desert us or cut us adrift. He came to us in Jesus Christ, who shares our grief, our sorrow, our suffering, our temptation and our death. He died, as Paul said, even for the ungodly. He died for us. And God who raised Jesus from the dead will raise us to new life in him.

So if we trust God with our life, we can surely trust him with our death, for the one who meets us at the end is none other than the Good Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep and would not rest until all were gathered into the fold.



[The Bible's position is] that God is the creator of death as a natural event. But an untimely death is a form of suffering which has, intervened between the Creator and the universe he sustains. During the age of this world, which is the age not of God's creation but only of his preservation, it is in Adam and not simply in God that all live; and it is in Adam that all die...

The New Testament is candidly silent about the conditions that will obtain following our [death]. But it is unequivocal about the truth which is of major importance: the God who does not intend our untimely death will have the last word about death... For this purpose Jesus Christ took death upon himself, 'that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.'

Carl Michalson, Faith for Personal Crises

Who is there who can be ready for the future which God gives? Are we so free from anxiety that we cease to cling to the transitory and perishable? Are we free from our own past, from ourselves? There is only one power which can free us from the bondage of self, and take away from us both our fear and our self-despair. It is the power of love...

This love of God is not a goal toward which we strive -- who could ever obtain it by striving? But it is the power which already enclasps us and enfolds us, and to which our eyes have only to be opened; and we are to turn our gaze and our meditation on him in whom it has appeared incarnate, Jesus Christ. To know oneself to be sustained by this love means to be free from the bondage of the past, from the fetters of oneself, free for the future which God will bestow and for the glory which will be revealed to us.

Rudolf Bultmann, This World and Beyond

All my hope on God is rounded;
He doth still my trust renew,
Me through change and chance he guideth,
Only good and only true.

God unknown,
He alone
Calls my heart to be his own.

Joachim Neander

Father in Heaven! When the thought of thee wakes in our hearts, let it not awaken like a frightened bird that flies about in dismay, but like a child waking from its sleep with a heavenly smile.

Soren Kierkegaard, The Prayers of Kierkegaard

A famous tennis player used to spend a great deal of time on the court, not with racquet and balls but just walking around, or standing and looking at the lines. 'Why?' he was asked.

'How can you play your best game if you haven't got a feel for the boundaries?' he replied.

If we do not consider that we shall die; if we do not press on from this truth to the required openness and resolution; if we do not let it forbid us to lose time and command us to make time for ourselves, then we are not genuinely and properly what we could be. We must consider that we shall die; otherwise we cannot be wise. And without wisdom, the true and proper life for which we are destined is quite impossible.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

Treat the living as though they were dying.

Anonymous

The unsuppressed knowledge about death unveils the deepest and most crucial possibilities in life. Philip of Macedon turned this realisation into a kind of one-a-day brand elixir. His slave had a standing order. Every morning he was to enter the quarters of his king and shout, 'Philip, remember that thou must die!'

Carl Michalson, Faith for Personal Crises

Lord, in the strength of grace,
With a glad heart and free,
Myself, my residue of days,
I consecrate to thee.

Charles Wesley

Give me, O Lord,
A steadfast heart, which no unworthy affection may drag downwards;
An unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out;
An upright heart, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside.

Thomas Aquinas

To number our days, to remember that we must die means in the first place... to acknowledge and endure our predicament... The wise heart belongs to one who knows that in the hour of death we have nothing to rely upon except God's mercy.

But there is another thing to be remembered. What happened in the death of Jesus did not happen against us, but for us. What took place was not an act of God's wrath against us. Quite the opposite holds true. Because in Jesus, God so loved us from all eternity -- truly all of us -- because he has elected himself to be our dear Father and has elected us to become his dear children whom he wants to save and to draw unto him.

Therefore he has in the one Jesus written off, rejected, nailed to a cross and killed our old self who, as impressively as it may dwell and spook about in us, is not our true self. God so acted for our own sake.

Karl Barth, Deliverance for the Captives

It is precisely in the face of death that God's power hidden in the world is revealed. We cannot work out for ourselves the resurrection from the dead. But we may in any case rely on this God who can be defined as a God of the living and not of the dead; we may absolutely trust in his superior power even in the face of inevitable death; [we] may approach our death with confidence. The Creator and Conserver of the universe and of humankind can be trusted, even at death and as we are dying, beyond the limits of all that has hitherto been experienced, to have still one more word to say: to have the last word as he had the first.

Hans Kung, On Being a Christian

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed every day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4, 16-18, RSV

Fixed on this ground will I remain,
Though my heart fail and flesh decay;
This anchor shall my soul sustain,
When earth's foundations melt away;
Mercy's full power I then shall prove,
Loved with an everlasting love.

Johann Andreas Roth

Help me, O Lord, not to make too much of my own death, nor too little. Save me from coasting through the rest of my life, thinking that the best is behind me, not believing in creative possibilities yet to come, disappointed by hopes unfulfilled, longings unanswered.

Strengthen me in prayer and action for those who find life a living death:

* accident victims and others paralysed, trapped in a body that seems like a tomb; tortured by minds that mislead, confuse and terrify them;

* sons and daughters caring for aging parents, resentful that they have to do so much, yet guilty when they cannot do more;

* men and women stuck in jobs they long to change, or overcome with work demands they cannot meet, obsessed by work that dominates them, distraught at work they cannot find.

I am so thankful that my life has been free of that living death. Most of my time has been given to study and work that I find worthwhile and rewarding; I've had time for family and friends; my body and mind have enabled me to know and to share the joy of your creation.

Help me to show my gratitude in a life lived more fully to your glory, more committed to the needs of others, more open to the future, more accepting of what is yet to be, echoing in my life what I affirm with my lips:

'The best of all is, God is with us.' Amen.



A Benediction

And now to God who was in the beginning and will be at our end; who in Jesus Christ died and rose again to overcome the last enemy; whose Spirit breathed life into us and will give us life anew; to Father, Son and Holy Spirit we commit ourselves and those we love, trusting you with our death as we trust you in life, world without end. Amen.

Rivers in the Desert ed. By Rowland Croucher pp. 245-251