Books by Ian Rogers
Books by Ian Rogers
Towards the end of her life, my Grandmother lingered in pain from rheumatoid arthritis for several years, bedridden and needing the indignities of bed pans and bed baths. She would have been grateful for a less painful or less prolonged last illness. I know of several people who have said: “Why is God letting this happen to me?” or “What have I done to deserve this?”. Pru, an alert but elderly lady in our congregation, commented about another, deceased, member: “It was awful when Robert lingered. You wonder why God didn’t take him sooner”. A few weeks later, when someone died suddenly and without warning, she said: “It’s awful when someone goes suddenly like that. They get no warning so they can say their goodbyes and put their affairs in order!”
I nearly said: “In our eyes, I don’t think there’s ever a good time for someone to die.” I don’t know and can’t explain why some people suffer more than others. Most attempts to justify God’s ways about such passings can sound hollow and callous - but I do believe we will see a full and loving picture that satisfies both Pru and me when, on whatever timescale, we make our own journeys into heaven.
In case I have sounded flippant, I need to say how much I sympathise with devastated people who are left to mourn. I have been through it myself. The ups and downs of mourning - emptiness, anger, grief, the questions “Why in that way?” and “Why at that time?” are natural ones to ask. Despite what some Christians say, we are not made to be happy-clappy and jovial when a loved one passes away.
If our loved one was not Christian, we must not assume they have come to a bad spiritual end. God is both righteous and loving, forgiving and merciful. We have to trust him with the fate of our unconverted loved ones. As Abraham said: “Shall not the God of all the world do what is right?” and God said: “I will spare the entire population (of Sodom and Gomorah) if only five righteous men can be found there”. He did not say: “I will squish all unrighteous people like bugs.” Just as well, since “no one is righteous, not even one”!
The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says: “Do not ask who will get to heaven… or go to hell… The world (of life) is in your hearts and on your lips” - by which I think he means: ‛get on with walking the Christian walk and talking the Christian talk and leave unfathomable and eternal decisions to God’. In Jesus the psalmist’s saying: “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other” (Ps85 v10) is fulfilled. If we can’t trust God to deal appropriately with those that we love in the wider scope of eternity, do we really trust ourselves to him?
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