Making Sense of Death
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Death
Table of Contents
Click on the study title or article you’d like to see:
Study 1: Making Sense of Death
Article 1: The Great Reunion Beyond
Study 2: What Is Heaven Like?
Article 2: Finding Heaven
Study 3: What We’ll Look Like in Heaven
Article 3: Heavenly Bodies
Study 4: Cremation or Burial: What Does the Bible Say?
Article 4: Cremation Confusion
Study 5: Dealing with Suicide
Article 5: Is Suicide Unforgivable?
Study 6: How to Help the Dying
Article 6: Dying in Peace
© 2007 • Christianity Today International
Visit www.ChristianBibleStudies.com
Leader’s Guide
Making Sense of Death
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Leader’s Guide - Study 1Making Sense of Death
How dying brings meaning in the midst of life.
Death is the last enemy, Scripture tells us, so few of us look forward to meeting up with it. Yet waiting out the final days with her dying grandpa on the battlefield of death taught Sarah Hinlicky much about the significance of dying as well as rethinking the direction of her life and ministry. In this study, we will grapple with the death issue as we walk alongside others in crisis and as we consider our own appointment with death.
Lesson #1
Scripture:
John 11:20–36; Acts 8:2; Colossians 2:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–14; James 5:13; 2 Samuel 1:17–18; 23–27
Based on:
“The Great Reunion Beyond,” Christianity Today, February 5, 2001, Vol. 45, No. 2, Page 50
PART 1
Identify the Current Issue
Note to leader: Prior to meeting, provide for each person the article "The Great Reunion Beyond" from Christianity Today magazine, included at the end of this study..
The goal of this section is to focus participants on death as a pain-causing life issue that people generally shy away from. Choose one or more of the following options, as time permits, for your group to work on.
Option A: Death Island
Distribute the map of Death Island that you have prepared to the class. On this island, you’ve drawn streams, rivers, lakes, forests, bays, mountains, caves, valleys, roads, and other topography. It’s an imaginary island, so you—and class members—can include anything on it you want. Divide the class into three groups, and ask each to come up with names for various parts of Death Island. These names should reflect some of their thoughts and fears about death. For example, they might come up with The Cave of Unnamed Dreads, or The Forest of Choking Hospital Tubes. After each group has come up with at least five titles, have a spokesperson for each group present the titles and what they represent. For most of us death is a mapmaker, taking us into uncharted territory. Ask the group to share some life experiences that have taken them into strange, unfamiliar places. What helped them get over the fear?
Option B: Seesaw Balancing Act
Make a seesaw out of a flat piece of wood or cardboard balanced on a simple object. Mark one side “Severe” and the other, “Sentimental.” Ask class members to come up with a list of comments they’ve heard or read about death. Then have them decide on which end of the seesaw each comment belongs. Write the gist of each comment on a small piece of paper, and place it on the appropriate side of the seesaw. For example, someone might remember Hinlicky’s description of death as an “eternal pit of nothingness without a single spark of redeeming value.” That’s pretty severe! Or someone might mention the Christian who blithely smiles at a loved one’s funeral and says, “She’s with the angels now.” That’s pretty sentimental. See if your class can come up with at least five comments on each side of the seesaw. Then ask them to evaluate those comments in light of Christian teaching. What would be some appropriate comments to make at a wake or funeral or to someone who is dying?
Option C: A Creed of Death
Ask members of the class to come up with a creed, or statement of belief (no more than two paragraphs) that non-Christians might have about death. Think of what they might glean from movies, books, or talk shows about what happens to someone who dies. Think of what helps them deal with the death of a loved one; how they explain it, how they find meaning in it, and what comforts them in it. For example, someone might say: “I believe that we never really die; we just recycle into someone else. That bird, that flower, that peach just might be Mom!” Then work that into a statement or creed about death.
Discussion starters:
Follow any one of those options by discussing some of these questions:
[Q] What comments have you heard at funerals that struck you as theologically bizarre or off-target?
Ø Why do you think people make such statements?
Ø Should you try to correct them?
[Q] What would you most want someone to say to you if you had been given a terminal diagnosis from a physician?
[Q] When do you think it’s appropriate to contact a person after they have lost a loved one? What factors might make a difference in the timing of such visits or calls?
PART 2
Discover the Eternal Principles
Scripture doesn’t offer a list of instructions on what to say to people who are dying or to survivors of loved ones who have died. It doesn’t offer us detailed descriptions of what we’ll find on the other side of death, either. Nonetheless, it does offer guidance on how to get through the process. Here are some principles it teaches.
Teaching point one: Our Christian convictions stabilize us in death and dying.
Read John 11:23–27.
[Q] What did Martha expect would happen to Lazarus, now that Jesus had arrived? Did she think her brother would be raised from the dead?
[Q] How did the reaction of the two sisters differ from that of some of the Jews, who asked, “Could not he (Jesus) who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
[Q] Why did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead?
[Q] What lessons does this passage teach us about God, ourselves, and people who die in the Lord?
[Q] Observe that in John 11:24 Martha expressed a generic conviction, which, in verses 25 and 26, becomes a more specific conviction, then emerged into full belief as Martha stared death in the face. How did Jesus move toward theological insight?
[Q] How did Jesus use theological convictions to affect what we think of as the real-world stench of death (Compare John 11:25–26 and John 11:39)?
[Q] What are some down-to-earth theological insights you have received as you faced the death of someone close to you?
Optional Activity:
Review the scene from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment (Part 4, Chapter 4), in which Sonya, the poor prostitute, and Raskolnikov, the murderer, read aloud the story of Lazarus. What theological insights about death do Sonya and Raskolnikov glean from this account?
Teaching point two: Christians are not exempt from the pain or grief of death.
John Newton, the composer of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” preached at his wife’s funeral. The black preacher, E.V. Hill also preached on the occasion of his wife’s death. That didn’t mean that either man was spared the deep pain or intense grief of losing the person they loved most in life, however.
Some Christians appear to be escapees from a wax museum. They have been primed to be stoic or smiley faced in the face of death in order to present a “good testimony” to non-Christians. Read John 11:25, Acts 8:2, and Revelation 7:17 to see how believers—including our Savior, Jesus Christ—responded to death.
[Q] How does the portrait of Jesus in John 11:25 compare with the Jesus figure often seen depicted in medieval paintings or Hollywood movies?
Ø Does weeping show weakness or strength in a time of sorrow?
Ø How much weeping is too much? Do we put brackets around how and how long a person should express grief?
[Q] Have you seen a friend or family member exhibit what you think is a healthy mix of theology and tenderness at the death of a loved one? What did that look and sound like? What did it say to you?
[Q] What two things did Stephen’s mourners do in response to death?
Ø What theological insights do they suggest about what our approach should be?
[Q] What two approaches to death are mentioned in 1 Thessalonians 4:13?
Ø How are they both faulty approaches to death?
Ø How can we deal with death without lapsing into them?
Teaching point three: Coming to terms with death teaches Christians how to live.
In her article, Sarah Hinlicky moves from trying to argue against the senselessness of death to a point of trying to make sense out of it. In time, her grandfather’s dying words to her even provided a sort of charter for her future career. Likewise our experiences with death can be life changing. Read 2 Samuel 1:17–27.
[Q] How did Saul’s suicide and Jonathan’s death become a path for David’s creativity?
[Q] Describe a deep loss you’ve suffered that prompted something from you that was creative, life affirming, or restorative.
[Q] Has the loss of someone you loved prompted you to develop relationships with others on a deeper level? If so, how?
PART 3
Apply Your Findings
In this section lead the class in a discussion about how we can come to terms with whatever fears we may have about death as well as what kinds of approaches have proved helpful in reaching out to others while they are grieving.
Application A: Prayer and Share
Pass around a sheet of paper for people to sign, signifying they are willing to be matched up with someone of the same gender. These prayer partners will set up a weekly time and place to pray together (this could be by phone) about their concerns related to death, such as fear of sickness or death, forgiveness of someone who harmed them and has died, making responsible choices about preparing for death, etc.
Application B: Sensitivity Session
Ask each class participant to write down one statement (real or imagined) that he or she would find personally offensive if said in the context of a personal loss through death. For example, “Romans 8:28 is all you need to get you through this tragedy.” Are there other verses that Christians quote like clichés at a time of grief or loss? How could they be delivered in a way that’s more helpful?
Application C: Funeral Planning
Have members of the class write a few paragraphs explaining things they’d like people at their own funeral to hear. It could convey instructions on who should care for whom. It could express appreciation to those who helped you in your walk with the Lord. It could challenge unbelievers to come to terms with the Lord. Though some people resent turning a funeral message into an evangelistic call to salvation, what better time is there to express that as well as a true believer’s assurance that “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil. 1:21)?
You may want to close this discussion with this quote from Lewis Johnson: “Resurrection power always works best in a graveyard.”
You could also tell this story from British essayist and preacher F.W. Boreham: A dying man was telling his doctor how much he feared death when something began scratching on the other side of the closed door. The doctor listened, then said to the patient, “Your dog has never been inside this room, but because you came into this room, your dog trusts that it’s a good place to be.”
Like that dog, we may pass through the door of death to the other side with complete confidence because we know our Master will be waiting for us.
— Jim Townsend, former Bible editor for Cook Communications, teaches part-time and freelances as an editor and writer. He lives in Elgin, Illinois.
© 2007 • Christianity Today International
Visit www.ChristianBibleStudies.com
Article
The Great Reunion Beyond
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Article
The Great Reunion Beyond
Death is the heartless divider—or so I thought before I watched my grandpa die.
By Sarah E. Hinlicky, for the study “Making Sense of Death.”
He just wasn’t hungry. It was a magnificent triumph that night when I got him to eat some sautéed chicken and pasta along with his usual bowl of fruit cocktail, but that was a charade for my sake. The meals my aunt Kathy brought down every night were left untouched in the fridge. His previous diet of canned chop suey and ice-cream bars was beginning to look healthy to us; after all, some calories are better than none at all. But no amount of aromatic sausage meatballs or drippy sweet corn on the cob was going to change the fact that he didn’t want to live anymore, which was why he didn’t want to eat anymore, either. The facts added up, but that doesn’t mean they made sense to me.
I’m still too young, I still have too many dreams and delusions to be ready to die. I tell myself I’m not afraid of death because I trust the promise of the resurrection, but that is a pious lie. Death is the great terrifying beyond, and God (seriously considered) is pretty terrifying too, especially when I realize that death will someday remove the curtain of matter and sin and creation groaning in labor pains that buffer me from his countenance.
Meanwhile, as I live, death is nothing but the heartless divider, separating me from my departed loved ones. So I call it the enemy, the instigator of chaos, the void and abyss and predator and devourer and jaws of hell and eternal pit of nothingness without a single spark of redeeming value—death, the senseless plague.