death

Only One Worldview Brings Life

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Any time any person (usually a christian) says “Changing this will lead to that,” they are scorned for espousing the slippery slope theory. Sadly, human nature being what it is, the slopes are often slipped.

We see this already in Australia. Just one year after the Same Sex Marriage plebiscite, which we were told would not affect anybody, we find that attacks are being made on the rights of religious schools to teach their beliefs about human sexuality. They said, “If you don’t like same sex marriage you don’t have to have one,” but already the pressure is building for schools and, soon, churches to buckle under and negate their own faith.

People around the world have been shocked by the decision in New York State to allow abortions right up until birth. A baby now has not even the right to live right until it is safely born. The city was lit up in pink in an obscene celebration of this event.

But it gets worse. In the state of Virginia similar legislation is being introduced. The Governor of that state has been reported to have coldly described a scenario in which labour starts before an abortion is completed. The baby is born naturally and then made comfortable while the doctor and the mother decide whether to kill the baby or allow her to live. In normal societies this is called infanticide and fills people with revulsion.

Whenever people decide to live their lives separate from God, it always results in a death culture. Whether it is the traditional pagan human sacrifice or its modern versions of abortion and euthanasia, humans will be sacrificed.

Fifty years ago this would have prompted outrage but now we are not surprised as the slopes continue to be slipped.

A number of times in the scriptures people are given choices and exhorted to “choose life.” Have you ever wondered why they had to be told to “Choose life”? Isn’t that a normal desire?

No. Sin, our built in rebellion against God always drives us towards death. A culture that ignores God will always, in the end, choose death- even the deaths of newborn babies.

I Buried My Grandson Today

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baby-feet

I buried my grandson today.

We huddled as an extended family on a cold winter’s day and prayed then placed the body of Aaron Emmanuel Tolson in the ground. I looked around at my daughter and son-in-law again burying a baby who seemed to have been stolen from them; at my wife and my daughter’s in-laws and our “adopted family” members. We will all process this tragedy in different ways, but all in the light of our faith in a good God.

When we had said all that needed to be said, and cried and hugged and wordlessly expressed powerful love for one another, we left and came home to our church. We ate morning tea and talked and chatted about nothing much; we just hung out together because we are family.

I buried my grandson today.

I remember when Susannah first came and told us she was pregnant again. We were so excited. After the loss of her first child, Henry, who was still-born, surely now we could look forward to a happy, healthy, lively addition to our family.

We were under strict instructions to keep it quiet as she had only just taken over the ballet school. She was afraid parents might pull their girls out, thinking they would be left high and dry by a pregnant dance teacher who was not up to the job. But after a few weeks, everyone knew anyway, as they do in a  small town.

In April it was discovered that there may be a development problem with the baby. The news was devastating, and at first it seemed like there was only a small chance of the baby surviving. Then people started to pray, big miracle faith-full prayers, and a neo-natal surgeon said there was a good chance. There would be inconvenience, maybe a month of living away from home to be near the hospital before the birth, and an unknown future after that.

I buried my grandson today.

But then, seven weeks too early, Susannah started labour. They gave her drugs to stop it, and they seemed to work. An air ambulance was flown up from Sydney and she was flown to Newcastle. It was a rush to get her there in time because the drugs had stopped working and she was in full-on labour all the way.

As soon as Aaron was born he was rushed to NICU, the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit. Machines and monitors and tubes and wires were hooked up to every part of his body.

His little lungs were too under-developed to get enough oxygen into his body. No matter what they did, he just couldn’t get that oxygen into his blood stream.

We arrived in the evening, not knowing what to expect. Susannah had just been told that he wasn’t going to make it. They took us all up to the NICU and proceeded to move all the tubes and wires so she could hold the baby.

For the next few hours she held that baby and stroked him and told him that he was loved and sang to him. As she did that, the numbers on the monitors seemed to take a turn for the better. Susannah and James poured love into that little baby in the best way they could.

I watched and saw two people who love one another grow strong in caring for this tiny life. I saw a miracle in that room, although not the one we so desperately wanted.

A photographer came and took some really nice photos. At one stage she asked Susannah to life Aaron’s leg. As if he had trained all his life for this moment, he pointed his toes- a true dancer.

We prayed and handed him over to the Lord. A little while later the nurse put a stethoscope to his chest and said in the tiniest voice, “There’s no heartbeat.” The nurse practitioner and the nurses grabbed a tissue each.

I buried my grandson today.

It must have cost tens of thousands of dollars to give Aaron a chance at life. I thought about that in the shower this morning as I tried to come to terms with what would happen in a couple of hours. The cost of bringing a specialist plane from Sydney to Narrabri, then down to Newcastle. The ambulances. The millions of dollars of equipment in NICU and the staff who were dedicated to his care.

Then I thought of how politicians in Queensland are contemplating abortion without restriction in a state that is literally a two hour drive from my home. It is so contradictory that we can at the same time spend huge amounts of money to save a baby’s life but also hold on to the myth that another baby who might be inconvenient can be disposed of without consequence. I know that it is tough for a mother to go through grief with all the support in the world, but how tough would it be if there was no support, no value on your baby’s life?

I buried my grandson today.

I know in my heart that one day I will see him again, not in a body that is too weak to cope, but in a new body, a resurrected body.

 

 

 

Where Was Jesus on Saturday?

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tomb_stone

It’s Easter Saturday (more accurately Holy Saturday), the space between the sorrow of Good Friday and the joy of Easter.

What was Jesus doing on Saturday?

Maybe we should start with the why of Easter Saturday. In theory Jesus could have resurrected any time after His heart stopped beating. “It is finished!” could have been followed with “Surprise!” as He got down from the cross in His new body.

In Jewish tradition, it was not possible to say that a person’s spirit had truly left their body until the third day after their death. Remember that they counted the day that something happened as the first day. So Jesus rose on the Sunday, the third day after His death.

The delay was for our benefit, so that we would know for sure that He had died on the cross, not merely stunned as some people try to make out. Jesus’ death was truly beyond doubt. Not too many people survived a crucifixion, which in Jesus’ case included a spear thrust through His side.

So the delay was for our benefit, that we would know that the death was real and the resurrection was real.

Jesus’ body remained in the tomb, as far as we know. The opening was sealed and guarded by soldiers in case someone stole the body. They remained there until the events of the resurrection on Sunday morning (see Matthew 28:1-6).

Jesus’ spirit presumably returned to the Father for some high fives and celebration at the completion of the great rescue plan.

In 1 Peter 3:19 we are told that after His death “He went and preached to the spirits in prison.” It is not clear who these spirits are or what He preached to them about or why this happened. But we do know that this particular event happened outside of the constraints of physical time.

Regardless, we do know that Jesus died on Good Friday at the hands of well trained and experienced executioners. We know that He was, by any measure, dead. When He died He took the sins of the world and put them to death also, lifting from us the burden of guilt.

He invites us all to live in resurrection life, being a part of His Kingdom for ever.

 

 

Evil in Las Vegas

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las-vegas

In Las Vegas yesterday, 22000 people went to a country music concert, and 58 of them died in an awful shooting incident. One man in the space of minutes ended the lives of 58 ordinary people, and injured hundreds of others.

In another part of the United States, singer and songwriter Tom Petty died unexpectedly, possibly of a heart attack.

Did any of these people expect to die at this time? They were just going about every day life, not expecting that “every day life” was about to stop.

None of us knows when our time on earth is about to end.

The decisions we make now determine our destiny in eternity. Only those who sincerely follow Jesus will be allowed into God’s kingdom.

In 2 Corinthians 6:2 Paul says, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.” 

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we can reach out to God today and receive His salvation. If you have never asked Jesus to forgive your sins do that today.  Then ask Him for the grace to live His way, and join a church where people will be able to help you grow in Him.

Of Gerberas, Grief and Dogs

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Twenty days ago, ironically enough on Father’s Day, we received one of those late night door knocks that only ever bring bad news. Our daughter, just 10 weeks or so from giving birth to our first grandchild, had noticed that the baby had stopped moving. The doctors at the hospital had been unable to find a heart beat and the fate of the baby would be confirmed with an ultrasound the following morning.

Sometimes the journey that we think we are travelling is abruptly ended, changed to a completely different one with a destination that nobody could foresee and that nobody wants.

Last week at the memorial service for baby Henry we were to  release a helium balloon. As I left to collect it Margaret asked me to buy some small flowering plants to put near the water feature near the church door to add some colour. A couple of pots of gerberas with bright yellow flowers were perfect.

 

gerberas

After the service was over, I planted them in some pots in the garden expecting them to be here to remind us of the grandson who isn’t here. But this morning I found this:

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There was no doubt who the culprit was.

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I was so angry, sad and despondent.

On the one hand it is just $20 worth of plants- another item on this horrible dog’s tally of destruction. But on the other hand, it touched me at a level of my soul because of the connection of these flowers to baby Henry. It is irrational but the destruction of these plants brought to the surface a new collection of emotions that needed to be felt and understood.

Today was a difficult day, but not just for my own grief. I heard of a father who died after an illness of several years whose family has literally been barely surviving for that time. I heard of the struggle of a good friend in a difficult marriage. I know of another young father who is about to die from an aggressive leukaemia.

And over the last few weeks we have heard of people with seemingly happy families and lovely children who have suffered a similar loss to ours.

The worst thing about being a parent is that you can’t fix the really important things in your children’s lives. Love for others allows us to share their joys, but it multiplies our capacity for hurt.

All of this points to the limitless capacity of God’s love to us. While two sets of parents were trying to help their son and daughter through an awful time there were little gracelets that brought light into the darkness. There were smiles in the tears brought to us by a loving Father who knows what it’s like to lose a Son.

So we walk a path we did not choose, and would not if it were ours to choose.

But we know that God is walking with us.

 

 

20 Reason Why Euthanasia Corrupts Everything.

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Euthanasia is the latest feature of the culture of death to be promoted in the West. The positives are trumpeted in the media but the full story is never told. Here are some reasons why euthanasia is bad for us.

From Lifesitenews.com:

20 reasons why euthanasia corrupts everything it touches, and must be opposed

There are many in-depth analyses of assisted suicide and euthanasia flying about the Internet as the debate heats up in the Canadian Parliament and Senate. I’ve written several myself. Today, however, I want to give twenty summarized reasons for why people should reconsider euthanasia. Canada’s media – with notable exceptions like theNational Post’sAndrew Coyne – have consistently promoted assisted suicide, with the result that many of the consequences and implications have not been adequately considered:

1.  Assisted suicide suggests that for people to “die with dignity,” they must die faster. The underlying insinuation of the “Death with Dignity” movement is that those who do not opt for an expedited exit are not dying with dignity.  

2. Assisted suicide undermines the supposed purpose of the medical establishment: To heal patients, save lives, and reduce pain. To refer to killing patients as a “medical service” is an assault on medicine and on the English language. 

3. Assisted suicide reduces those who qualify for this “service” to second-class citizen status. If someone without depression does not qualify for assisted suicide, for example, but someone with depression does, the state has effectively judged the life of the person with depression as being less valuable. 

Read the full article here

Pray to Die Well

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This week I’ve found myself thinking about death a bit, and in particular the idea of dying well.

For christians dying is a transition from the world of limitations, brokenness and sin to the life lived in the fullness of the presence of God where there is no death, no sin, and everything is made new.

So death is not to be feared, but to be approached with confidence, even joy. Therefore for many centuries christians would pray for the grace to die well, that is peacefully.

Our culture has turned a blind eye to death because we all want to believe we will be for ever young and never die. We have relegated death to a private act, preferably in hospital.

Lately there has been a trend in churches to be “positive” and focus more on living well and less on eternity and transitioning there. So christians are less likely than ever to pray to die well.

This week I heard of two instances of christians dying well.

The first was the very public death in Indonesia of eight people, all drug smugglers and all foreigners, including two Australians. Most of this group of eight had become christians in their time in prison. The two Australians in particular had worked tirelessly to help their fellow inmates. Andrew Chan had gone as far as to be ordained as a pastor, and was recognised as such in the prison.

These men went bravely to their death, refusing the customary blindfolds and singing hymns. A pastor who witnessed the executions said she had never seen a group of people so keen to go to be with the Lord.

These men died well, bravely, even heroically.

Yesterday I attended a funeral for a local lady, a mother of three, who was diagnosed with cancer seven months ago. She is relatively young, and the cancer was an aggressive type. Although the doctors thought she might live two years, she died much more quickly. Her husband gave the major part of the eulogy, but he shared how she died. He related how on Friday night he climbed into bed next to her and, as he had done every night for their entire marriage, he kissed her three times and said, “Goodnight.” Then, he said, she breathed two quick breaths as if saying “Goodnight” and that was it.

Leonie died a good death.

Lord, grant that we may die peacefully and well.