A Reflection On Death

Death, Dead, Dying Or Passed On, Away Or Over?

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe* in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?* 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4And you know the way to the place where I am going.’* 5Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ 6Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid”
(John 14:1 -6, 27)

At a time when certainty has become harder to find, where the world we have grown up with is slipping away, we can be sure of one thing only. We are going to die. In-fact we are dying from the moment we take or first breath, however this certainty is generally something we spend our whole lives ignoring.

I had a conversation with a colleague who is vexed at medical staff's refusal to tell relatives that their loved one has died. She is convinced that died was the correct term when speaking to family about the deceased. She feels terms like passed away, passed on or over are inappropriate. I offered the suggestion that death, died and dead were brutal words that could be hard to say and even harder to hear. This has lead me to spend time in reflecting about death and what this certainty means to me, and how I should deal with it as a Pastor when helping those in my care. In the following pages I will explore how I have viewed my own mortality both in the past and at present. I will also examine experiences and how they have helped me explore the subject more deeply.



I have been reflecting about death since the conversation with Caroline, which is unusual, because I like many others do not spend too much time dwelling on my own mortality. I remember very clearly when I first realized that there was a finite length to my life. Years ago I was reading Stephen Davis’ biography of Led Zeppelin. In it he mentioned that a house Jimmy Page owned called the Tower House had later been sold to Francis Ford Coppola when it was his turn to be famous. I was struck by the idea of the movement of time. I stopped reading and thought for a long time about how short our time on earth is. In many ways it has affected my thinking ever since. My great Aunt Bella used to say we were only here on a visit and life was not a rehearsal. This information combined with the movement of time from Davis helped me kick start my life. However this thinking was all about living, not about dying.
In those days I was a very firm non-Christian, but someone of my generation growing up in Northern Ireland has been exposed to a lot of religiosity. While I was outwardly prepared to expound that this was all we were ever going to experience, inwardly I was uncomfortable that I was gambling on something that had no certainty and by the time I found out I was wrong it would be too late.
After a radical conversion and putting my Faith in Jesus Christ I was struck that now death was no longer a worry for me.
The text "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (1 Corinthians 15:55) has always made me smile with the assurance it brings.





Last year while on a retreat I took part in a meditation that had me imagine being on a sailboat with others. We were passing over to another shore. There was no pressure as Jesus was the pilot. On our laps was a large box that contained all our possessions. We were asked to open the box and examine all the things that were precious to us. As the journey continued we hit some heavy weather and were asked to make a decision. We were asked to decide to continue or to turn back. If were wanted to continue we needed to throw out some things that were in our boxes. This process continued until we were left with only two things. Our most precious things! I had a photo of my family and my bible. This was surprising, as I don’t carry either in real life! The moment came when the decision had to be made to throw these two things overboard or turn back. I looked at both and knew that I didn’t need a photo of my family as they were in my heart, and I didn’t need God’s word as I was with Jesus. I threw both over board.
As we reflected on our decisions afterwards I realized that at no point was I ever in doubt that I wanted to be with Jesus. Another student with two small boys, who were her last two precious things, tearfully said she realized that she had to let them go as they had to make to make their own journey. However this whole meditation is based on the assurance of an after life. For me I will have passed on. For those whom I have left behind there will be varying emotions. For my Son who is a non-believer I will be dead! For my Wife and Daughter I will have passed over to the far shore, with the promise of a reunion.
For me death is no longer a worry, or so I thought. As much as I have enjoyed my time at Hospice there has been at the back of my mind just out of focus a negativity. I was only able to bring it into focus momentarily on a few occasions. It is around the death of people at the hospice.



A number of people died while I was there. One young man who arrived around the same time I did seemed to be everywhere I went. Everyone seemed to be talking about him. Although I never met him, I was deeply affected by his death. He seemed to me to be a large presence at Hospice and beyond in the greater community. He died and the staff carried on. I wondered how such a large presence could not be missed? This was my first experience of a death of someone I was aware of at hospice, but for the staff he was another patient they had helped to die well and today they had other patients to consider and help. So I was challenged to think of death instead of cure and of a good death as a positive outcome.
I spent a few moments along with Caroline with a man who was the most ill person I had ever seen. I was surprised he lasted over the weekend and into the next week. I again along with Caroline spent some time with him and his family. As Caroline prayed outwardly and I quietly for him and his loved ones, I found myself asking God not to prolong his suffering. As I observed him he was fighting for breath and I reflected how unnatural that was. His body was becoming a burden and I realised there is a point when it can no longer contain the soul. He died later that day.
A few weeks after Hospice I was at the RVH on the second part of my placement when along with the Chaplain I attended a young couple who were preparing to switch of the life support keeping their new born daughter alive. As I looked at this young couple and the grief etched on their faces I was struck by a very deep sadness. Nothing in their young lives would have prepared then for what they were now going through. When I looked at their little girl who was beautiful and pink and looking perfect, only the myriad of tubes and wires giving any clue to how sick she was. I was again struck by how this little body was a burden to the soul it contained.


When the soul leaves, the body shuts down. It dies! Is the soul burdened by death or is it set free? Is there a point when the burden for the soul is life in human form?
The Late Ralph Stanley talked of death this way:

“Well I am death, none can excel
I'll open the door to heaven or hell

Whoa, death someone would pray
Could you wait to call me another day

The children prayed, the preacher preached
Time and mercy is out of your reach

I'll fix your feet till you can’t walk
I'll lock your jaw till you can’t talk

I'll close your eyes so you can't see
This very air, come and go with me

I'm death I come to take the soul
Leave the body and leave it cold

To draw up the flesh off of the frame
Dirt and worm both have a claim”

Stanley recognizes death as an unavoidable fact of life. He posits the idea that the soul is alive and that as it leaves the body it enters heaven or hell, but he also talks about the body that is left behind and decomposition and corruption that ensues.
A more benign, but no less fascinating view of death comes from Henry Scott Holland from his sermon The King Of Terrors preached on the occasion of the death of Henry the seventh. Holland embraces the naturalness of death, but offers hope of reconciliation with loved ones:
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!”

Perhaps this is the explanation between terms like Death and passed over. Death has occurred to the body, but the soul has passed over to another plain, or as Holland puts it has slipped away into another room. This view is based on the premise of personhood surviving beyond the death of the body. Our faith as Christians give us assurance that Jesus is waiting for us, a room prepared where we will be with the Father for evermore

A contrary view would be that with death comes the end of person.
Mark Cobb posits in his book A Dying Soul that death is not an experiential state, there is no person, in the way that this is understood, to feel and know death. Therefore death is the end. The end of conscious thought! If Death is the end, then no more need be said about it!