The Facts of Death

God did not make death,
nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living.
For he fashioned all things that they might have being;
and the creatures of the world are wholesome,
and there is not a destructive drug among them
nor any domain of the netherworld on earth,
for justice is undying. For God formed man to be imperishable;
the image of his own nature he made him.
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who belong to his company experience it.


Our reading this morning comes from the Book of Wisdom.  I apologize for starting this reflection with such a dark and startling picture, but I wanted to use the dramatic to gain your attention from the beginning.

If we go through the Genesis accounts of the creation, we can see one thing for sure.  God created everything that was good and was pleased with all the things with which He populated His world.  The final thing He created, the apex of all creation, He created Man and in this creation, He gave His all!  He imbued it with a brain that was capable of understanding the things He had done and was capable of returning freely the love He had for them.  Nowhere in Genesis do we hear that God created death, it was not a created thing, it was the result of rejecting His friendship and it was permanent and it was irreversible. 

The twentieth century was the century were death was king. Wars and insurrections, holocausts and pogroms, rulers of kingdoms pretending to be gods, countries where God was not welcome prevailed.  Millions upon millions of people were killed in these human-fueled tragedies.  As if these self-evident events of butchery were not enough, In the United States we assured that the bloodshed could continue as Roe versus Wade became the law of the land and the bodies of untold millions of innocent babies were scraped and vacuumed from their mother's womb just for convenience sake and these innocent lives joined the corpses of all of the wars and holocausts that made up the twentieth century. 

I can imagine God in Heaven looking down upon us, those created in His image, those that He wants to share Heaven with for all eternity and we using the skills He placed into our brains use them to design even more efficient ways to kill others. If God could cry, His tears would flood the universe as he considers what we have done.  So, why are we still here?  Why is He trusting us when based on our record, which goes all the way back to Adam and Eve is so very dismal?

The answer is simple, He knows the end of the story and He knows that good will triumph and all of the enemies of God, all of those that are merchants of death in its many forms will lose in the end.  He knows that some of His children will prefer to be out of His sight and He has prepared a place where that will be possible, it is a terrible place, but it is what they want.  He knows that there are huge numbers of people that are His and will be His forever.  He took great delight in preparing a home in sight of Him where our joy will have no end.  He knows that in the end, everyone gets what they want and what they used their time on earth to build. 

The next time you go to a funeral, remember that the person in the box is not really present.  They are in Purgatory, Heaven, or hell according to their desires.  Those in Purgatory need our prayers to help them shorten the time that they are there for.  The ones in Heaven could be no happier because they are with the Father that loves them so much, they have taken possession of their inheritance.  As for the rest, they too have what they want and happiness is impossible for them. 

One day, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe in ten years or ten centuries Jesus will return to this earth and all of us will receive back our bodies, perfected and a body that knows no limits, it feels everything fully. Those destined for heaven will know the joy of being with God and those that have chosen hell will know the pain of everlasting exile from the sight of the Father.  God will reign and Jesus will sit at His right hand.