Death: Life's Sequel Series

How does your family handle death? More importantly, do you remember when you first realized you were going to die? Today, I want to speak to you on this subject – Death: Life’s Sequel.

As I speak to you this morning, hundreds of millions of my cells will die. Over the course of this day, approximately 2,000 of my brain cells will die and never return. My dying has already begun. News media has featured the recent unusual death of North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un’s older brother by a VX nerve agent. I paused to see Norma McCorvey’s death this past week in Katy, TX. If you don’t recognize the name, you may know her as Jane Roe. The woman behind the infamous Roe vs. Wade case that legalized abortion, became an ardent pro-life proponent in her later years. Yet, it is none of these deaths that we turn to in order to learn something about living. Instead, we turn to the biblical Jacob of Genesis.

Today, we come to the seventh and last scene in Jacob’s life – his death. Jacob is around 147 years old and is nearing his end. He almost died when he learned that Joseph, his most loved son, was alive when Jacob thought he had been killed for many years. Now, there is slow death and sudden death. While neither is what you want, we witness some of the advantages to a “slow death” in Jacob’s life. Joseph had the advantage of seeing his death coming – it was a slow death. Sudden death is rare in our day with Americans living much longer than we did about 100 years ago. In fact, Jacob’s death is so slow, he has not one but two “deathbed” scenes – one before his son, Joseph in Genesis 48, and the second before all his sons in Genesis 49. Knowing he’s near the end, he has able to communicate some important items to his loved ones. One more time, let’s learn from Jacob.

1. Commit to Face Death Practically

1.1 The Problems of Masking Death

There’s at least three ways we attempt to mask death.

1.1.1 We Ignore Death

Many of us pretend death doesn’t exist. An acute care worker in the medical field conducted a survey among 4,500 people in nursing homes in Australia. Only 500 of the 4,500 people had a plan if they became seriously ill and only 100 had a plan about what to do if their hearts stopped beating. Here’s a really important question to ask the people of your family: “In the event that you became too sick to speak for yourself, who would you like to speak for you?” “Out of sight, out of my mind,” we say.

1.1.2 We Lie about Death

In Arizona, cryonics experts maintain more than 130 dead clients in a frozen state that’s another kind of limbo. Their hope is that sometime in the distant future, maybe centuries from now, these clients will be thawed and revived, technology having advanced to the point where they can be cured of whatever killed them. Among those frozen is the former Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams.

1.1.3 We’re Comforted by Myths

Essentially, there’s three ways to see life after death: some believe you go up, some believe you go down, while others think you come back around. Our Catholic friends tell us that us if we’re not good, we go down to Purgatory. Other well meaning friends tell us we go up where grandma watches over us from heaven. Eastern religions, popularized by new age in our country, we go back around. We’re told we can come back again as a cow or a human. It’s the never ending circle of life for “no one really dies.”

A fourth option is our friends who think we simply stay in the ground. Atheists tell us we stay in the ground. There’s nothing after our death. Death is just the last step in our evolutionary process. And when you’re dead you’re dead. These are not the first lies about death for Satan told the first lie about death telling Adam & Eve, “you will not surely die.”

1.2 Think of Your Family

Facing our death practically means thinking about those closest to us. One EMT talks about the patterns he sees when he’s with those who have been told they are about to die. Almost to a person, they say, “I wish I had spent more time with my children and grandchildren instead of being selfish with my time.” Knowing you’ll die has a way of focusing our thoughts on family. And this is exactly what Jacob did near the end

The end of Genesis tells us that Jacob adopts Joseph’s sons. This is truly incredible. Jacob is now in Egypt because of the incredible story of his son’s kidnapping. Jacob adopts Joseph’s oldest two boys as he is own: “And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in Egypt, are mine; Ephraim and Manasseh shall be mine, as Reuben and Simeon are. And the children that you fathered after them shall be yours. They shall be called by the name of their brothers in their inheritance” (Genesis 48:5–6). Just to highlight the importance of these sons, please remember, these are the twelve tribes of Israel. Plus, Jesus will have twelve disciples as a reminder of these twelve.