Death: Denial and Obsession

A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick


"Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." (John 5:24)

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death." (I John 3:14)

"Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. " (Revelation 2:10)

A number of years ago, our son Ted worked as a shift director for a group home of mentally challenged adults. Every Sunday morning, he took the residents to a nearby church - an Episcopal Church with all the ritual observances that often accompany "High Church" worship. To their credit, the people in that church accepted Ted's clients, and they loved them. Of course it was customarily a very quiet worship service, but in one particular service, one of the men in Ted's group couldn't contain his excitement; he suddenly jumped up and shouted out, "Elvis lives! Elvis lives! Elvis lives!"

What is it about our society that we do not want to accept the reality of death?

    This belief that the "king of rock 'n roll" is still alive is one evidence of our culture's denial of death. When Elvis died in 1977, Americans were shocked. Presley’s body was displayed in an open casket, and 100,000 mourners gathered for his funeral - the committal service at Forest Hills Cemetery was bombarded by devastated fans. After the burial, people continued to disturb the grave site, searching for whatever “relics” they could find. Because of this, the bodies of Presley and his mother were later disinterred and reburied at "Graceland".

    Before long, people began questioning whether Elvis had actually died - fans wanted to know the intimate details of his final days and asked questions about the veracity of his death certificate. Due to his addiction to prescription drugs, Elvis had become rather chubby, and the body in the coffin didn't look like the Elvis so many remembered. Speculation ensued that the dead “Elvis” on display had been either another person or a wax dummy. Some theorized that he had planned to fake his own death in order to get away from the pressures of his daily life. Soon people claimed to have had sightings of Elvis - for example, that he was seen kneeling at the grave-site of Jackie Kennedy. It was even claimed that Presley phoned Bill Clinton, promising a comeback.

    Why was there this unwillingness to believe that Elvis was dead? Because, according to one theorist, if his supporters agreed that Elvis was dead, then they would have to confront the fact of death, and accept the ultimate passing of their own youth and the slipping away of all its hopes and dreams. It was all part of a cultural determination to deny the reality of death.

It is amazing to me just how much we in America are preoccupied with death. Actually, it's rather paradoxical. On one side of the coin there's this widespread denial of death - we don't talk about it, and we sincerely believe that death is something that happens only to other people. Consider these factors:

    There is a near obsessive emphasis on youth. We do everything in our power - from clothing and make-up makeovers, to repeated plastic surgery - to keep us looking young, as though by keeping a youthful appearance we will never grow old and die.

    There's also a determined reluctance to talk about death - we avoid the words "die," "death" and "dead". Instead of using these bad "d" words, we say, "she passed on" or "passed away," "he checked out," "kicked the bucket," or "met his maker." Christians even do this when they report that someone has "gone home to his reward."

    Think about our funeral practices in which we do everything possible to avoid dealing with the reality. We remove and hide the dieing in nursing homes or hospitals where death is viewed by the medical personnel as a failure, and who often lie to family members about the true condition of their loved one. After death, the body is removed to another sterile, non-personal building deceptively called a "home" (funeral home) where the corpse is pumped full of chemicals which, along with the use of make-up, is supposed to make the body more pleasant and “life-like” - to the last, we don't want to admit he or she is dead. Then, after friends file past to view what is made to appear like a slumbering, but otherwise healthy person, the casket, either a simple wood box or an elaborate copper and bronze model (claimed to be “airtight”), is taken to the cemetery where the deceased may be further “protected” from the elements by a grave liner that surrounds the casket in the earth. After all, we wouldn't want to expose our loved one to decaying elements, bugs or rodents - that would be cruel seeing as they really aren't dead!

Even while we seem to do everything possible to avoid dealing with the reality of death, on the other side of the coin, overwhelming attention is given to death in television programs, the news, and in the movies. As one commentator stated, "The last few generations have watched an increasing amount of simulated violence and deaths on television, and even seen an increasing amount of deaths in homes and on the streets of cities due to violence." (National Organization for Victim Assistance)

According to a National Television Violence Study (Reported in The Cincinnati Post):

    85 percent of all programming shown on the three premium cable channels, and 44 percent of programming on broadcast networks includes violent acts;

    73 percent of perpetrators go unpunished in these programs;

    47 percent fail to depict the harm to victims, and

    58 percent show no pain.

According to a national survey taken some time ago, the average American watches 3 hours and 46 minutes of television each day! That means more than 26 hours each week, or 57 days (almost 2 months) of nonstop TV-watching per year. During a normal life-time, that's 12 years in front of a TV! Interestingly, 49 percent of Americans say they watch too much TV.

    What about our children? Most children watch TV for 1,582 minutes each week - their parents talk with them for 38 minutes!

    The average number of hours per year our children watch television is almost 1,400, while they spend an average of 900 hours in school.

    Alarmingly, the number of violent acts the average American child sees on TV by age 18 is nearly 200,000; conservatively, at least 16,000 of them are murders.

    About a year ago, a group of South Carolina sixth-graders did their own assessment of prime-time television. Each student agreed to watch one hour of prime-time television for four days and record the number of violent acts shown. Only murders and beatings were counted. The results? During the four-day period, they saw a total of 100 murders and hundreds of physical assaults (attacks).

    Media officials who hide behind the "freedom of speech" article in our Constitution, say there's no connection between what's on TV and the resultant violent behavior of viewers, although this is not at all the same line they give to advertisers!

Besides media attention, another obvious evidence of this preoccupation with death is the fastest growing youth sub-culture which began just 25 years ago in a nightclub in London called the "Batcave". This movement, known by the name "Goth", became much more noticed following the Columbine shootings, although it is unclear if the participants in the shootings were real Goths.

Most people identify this group by their dark, flowing, flimsy clothing, heavy makeup, pale skin and depressing music. Clearly, the emphasis in this youth sub-culture is on death and dying.

    As with most youth movements, music is important to the Goths, a subculture which is often joined by bright and intellectually inclined youth and/or those who like the feeling of belonging with other outcasts who are misfits outside the mainstream. However, there clearly is a preoccupation with death, and a morbid fascination with the gruesome. Goth teenagers often cut themselves, and think a lot about death and the beauty of the macabre. They try to find beauty in pain and death. One song, by the Goth band, "Black Dahlia Murder," reads: "An in my dreams I cut your mouth from ear to ear/dissecting your angelic body in the quiet of your room / how splendidly I carve into your tender heart."

    Some contend that this is a harmless movement, it's just a group of kids who want attention, or perhaps want to "see the shock on other peoples' faces." (Gordon A. Crews, School of Justice Studies at Roger Williams University.)

    However, the organization called "PARODY" (Parent's American Religious Organizations Defending Youth) point out that the Goth culture certainly is not harmless, but includes Satanism, drugs, violence, homosexuality, and witchcraft.

    Not too long ago, at the Reformed Church in Sussex, there was a funeral for a young person who had committed suicide. When a member of our church approached a small group of the deceased person's friends in the parking lot, and expressed condolences, one of the teens used an expletive, and then said, "He's better off than the rest of us."

    Here, let me read something which sounds like it could have been written by one of these young people: "I prefer strangling and death, rather than my life. I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning."

    Actually, these words were spoken by one of the earliest writers of the Bible nearly four thousand years ago. (Job 7:15,16) We might be willing to accept this coming from a wasted old man who had lost everything - health, wealth and all his children. Instead, today we hear words like these spoken by the youth of America. Would to God that Christian youth would rise to this challenge and say, "No, we're not going to be defined by death-loving Goths. We, the Christian youth of America are determined to be the fastest growing youth sub-culture! We will choose life, not death. We will follow Jesus who came to give us life, and we will live it to the full!"

So, in our America today there's this "over-the-top" preoccupation with death and dieing.

"So what?" someone may counter, "even in the Bible a lot of attention, and a lot or mention is made about death." Yes, in fact there are nearly 1,300 verses in the Bible that talk about death, compared to less than 900 that use words related to life. It seems this preoccupation with death has been with us a long time. Consider a few Biblical examples:

    The very first big brother, Cain, killed his younger brother, Abel. (Genesis 4:8)

    During the days of Noah leading up to the flood, the report was, "The earth was . . . full of violence." (Genesis 6:11)

    There was intrigue with Abram in Egypt - fearing he would be murdered, he claimed that Sarai was his sister. (Genesis 12:10-13)

    God Himself killed everyone in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah except for Lot and his daughters. (Genesis 19:25)

    God spoke to Abram and demanded the killing of his own son, Isaac. (Genesis 22:2)

    We recall Esau's plan to kill his brother for having stolen the blessing of their father. (Genesis 27:41)

    There's a horrible story of what happened after Jacob's daughter, Dinah, had been sexually violated by Shechem, a young man from a nearby town. The sons of Jacob deceitfully promised to permit Dinah to marry this man (who claimed he loved her) on the condition that he and all the males of his town be circumcised - they agreed, and three days later, while they were still sore from the circumcision, two of Dinah's brothers went and killed every male in the town. (Genesis 34:25)

    The brothers of Joseph faked his death, and dipped his "coat of many colors" in goat's blood to convince their father he was dead. (Genesis 37:31)

    God Himself killed Judah's oldest son, Er, and then also his brother because he would not father a child in his dead brother's name. (Genesis 38:7,10) When the third son of their father, Judah, wasn't given in marriage to Tamar (the wife of his first), she played the part of the prostitute and got Judah to have sex with her and became pregnant by him. When Judah found out, not knowing that the child to be born was his, he demanded that she be "burned to death!" (Genesis 38:24 - Read the rest of the story to find out how Tamar's life was spared - without the aid of DNA!))

    Meanwhile in Egypt, Joseph accurately predicted that the baker, a fellow prisoner, would be killed. Listen to the "PG13" description, "Pharaoh will lift off your head and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat away your flesh." (Genesis 40:19)

    Then in Exodus we learn of Pharaoh killing all of the male babies, Moses murdering an Egyptian, and God killing all the firstborn males. (Exodus 1,2,11)

    In Leviticus we're told of the death of Aaron's sons because they "offered unauthorized fire before the LORD." (Leviticus 10:1,2)

    In Numbers, Korah and 250 other men, along with their families, were killed - God caused a crevice in the ground to open up, they all fell into it and the earth swallowed them alive! (Numbers 16:32,33)

    In Deuteronomy, Moses reminisces about the battle over Heshbon when everyone in this town was killed "men, women and children." (Deuteronomy 2:34) The same thing happed with Bashan (chapter 3). Realizing that killing would be part of everyday life, cities of refuge were set up so that an accused murderer could be protected. (Deuteronomy 4 and 19)

    There's a huge amount of killing going on in "Joshua". In "Judges" we have bizarre stories such as:

      a woman, Jael, killing a military commander by the name of Sisera by driving a tent stake through his head (Judges 4:21),

      Jephthah killing his only child, a daughter (Judges 11), and

      Samson killing a thousand men using the jaw bone of a donkey as his weapon (Judges 15), and then himself being killed in the wreckage of the temple he brought down using his God-given strength. (Judges 16)

    On and on it goes.

    Saul is scolded by prophet/priest Samuel because he doesn't kill enough; David kills the giant Goliath using a smooth brook stone and the giant's own sword to take off his head; David later arranges for Uriah to be killed so he can cover up his illicit affair with the man's wife; David's rebellious son has three javelins shot through his heart as he hangs by his long beautiful hair caught in the low branches of an oak tree.

    If we fast forward to the last book of the Bible, we find more killing - the rider of the second (red) horse is given the power "to make men slay each other" (Revelation 6:4), and the rider of the fourth (black) horse is "given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." (Revelation 6:8)

    When the trumpets sound (chapters 8,9) there is more death, and when the "Two Witnesses" appear, they are given supernatural power to kill - they themselves will be killed (11) but resurrected after which an earthquake kills 7,000 people.

    From Genesis to Revelation, death and more death.

So what is the message - what's the point? Sure, there's obviously too much attention given to death, but so what?

The Christian's message is simply this: rather than deny death, we accept it as real, but renounce it, and choose life. We accept the reality of the inevitable, we are all going to die. However, we refuse to be afraid of it - we know that we will overcome it.

    In both the Old and New Testaments, sin is declared to be the cause of death. The prophet Ezekiel said, "The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him." (Ezekiel 18:20)

    And the Apostle Paul gave us these memorable words, "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

From the very beginning, there was this great temptation to believe that men and women can disobey God - sin - and still be like gods, i.e., immortal (Genesis 3:5 - KJV follows the LXX, unlike the NIV - "like God"). Satan convinced Adam and Eve that they could sin and live, when God had said sin would bring death.

At the very end of his life, Moses left the people of his day with this challenge, "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19)

How then will we do this - how will we choose life?

The Bible gives us three simple answers: believe in God, love, and be faithful to the end. Here again are the verses:

    "I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life." (John 5:24) This is a belief in God, but includes the awareness that He sent His Son Jesus into the world to be our Savior.

    "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death." (I John 3:14) As we well know, at the very heart of sin is self-centeredness - loving others is made possible only when there is within us the Spirit of the Living God.

    "Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. " (Revelation 2:10) While some may "grow weary in well doing," Jesus clearly pointed out, "He that endures to the end shall be saved." (Matthew 10:22)

Some may argue that nothing of any value can come out of the Church of Rome. But ten years ago, in an official message called "The Gospel of Life," John Paul II, warned that "We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the 'culture of death' and the 'culture of life'. We find ourselves not only 'faced with' but necessarily 'in the midst of' this conflict: we are all involved and we all share in it, with the inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life."

Obviously the leader of the Catholic church was preaching against the proponents of abortion and euthanasia - baby killing and mercy killing. Today we apply his words to all of us - let's choose the "culture of life" rather than the "culture of death." Let's rise up and proclaim loud and clear - death is for real, but we will overcome through faith in God and the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus; we will overcome through love for one another; and we will overcome through perseverance to the end.

Together, we will make this our confession:

    I am going to die, but I will live again.

    I believe in God the Father, the Creator of all; I believe in Jesus His Son who died and rose again; I believe in the Holy Spirit who provides life and purity.

    I love my brothers and sisters and am willing to lay down my life for them.

    By God's grace, I will remain strong in faith until the very end.

Discussion Questions
Death - Denial and Obsession

1. Why do fans of Elvis want to believe he is still alive?

2. What is the relationship between our insistence on appearing youthful and death?

3. What are some euphemisms for "dead"?

4. How do medical and funeral professionals help us avoid the reality of death?

5. What are some evidences you have seen this week that indicate a preoccupation with death on TV programs, news, and on movie screens?

6. Why is the repeated viewing of simulated violence and death dangerous to youth and adults?

7. What are the outstanding characteristics of the "Goth" youth sub-culture?

8. From beginning to end, the Bible has numerous examples of killing, murder and death. What are some examples?

9. Rather than denying it, what is the Christian's view of death?

10. According to both Old and New Testaments, what is the ultimate cause of death?

11. How does Satan's temptation of Adam and Eve relate to death?

12. Three ways to choose life are given by the Apostle John in John 5:24, I John 3:14, and Revelation 2:10. What are they?

13. What did the leader of the Roman Catholic church mean when he referred to the "culture of death" and the "culture of life"?

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