Death is inevitable yet you wouldn’t know it by all our desperate attempts to avoid the subject. Americans don’t die; we only pass away.
Our Puritans forebears have much to teach us about dealing openly and honestly with death. Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) wrote a book in 1651 with a strange-sounding title to our modern sensibilities. He called it Holy Dying. It was a sequel to his Holy Living book published a year earlier. Taylor wrote Holy Dying after the death of his wife and four sons. He urged readers to consider the necessity of preparing for “a blessed death.” He said the best way to have a holy death is to live a holy life. He told the Earl of Carbery, to whom he dedicated the book, “It is a great art to die well.”
Many people in our death-denying culture think about their death as a frightening prospect. Not the Biblical writers. They speak confidently about life after death on account of Christ’s victory over the grave. Paul writes with confidence in Romans, “If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom. 14.8-9).
Today’s prayer by Jeremy Taylor is realistic about life’s brevity and confident of God’s provision of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord: