Necessary Roughness

Pastor Paul Gregory Alms today posts a quotation from St. Athanasius on the attitude of death possessed by the saved. Here’s a piece:

Before the divine sojourn of the Savior, even the holiest of men were afraid of death, and mourned the dead as those who perish. But now that the Savior has raised His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection.

This made me might think of the abduction and “forced conversion” of the Fox journalists last fall. I think though we are guilty of fearing death to some degree, even the day after Easter, when the tomb owned by Joseph of Arimethea is available for rental again (thanks Pr. Chryst). The irreverence of death may come as a shock to some.

We say with Paul in defiance 1 Cor. 15:55, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” And yet we still grieve. We still find it difficult to explain the death of a relative family friend to a child. We fear exposing our youth to the topic may cost them some innocence and harm their psyches somehow.

It’s better to hear about death from Christian parents rather than atheist peers. It’s also better to cover the subject before their first ghost story or horror flick. People can only recognize fiction when they’ve heard the non-fiction. The odds are much, much greater that we are going to die rather than be around for the end times, if one just counts the number of humans that have ever been on the earth. We might as well arm our youth and ourselves with knowledge. When I was in LYF, the kids were thirsty for it.

The late Dr. A. L. Barry, when he was president of the LCMS, wrote a nice three-page question and answer (PDF) for his “What About…” series. It’s simple and biblical. It’s not quite suitable for my kids yet, but it’s useful to have this in mind when the questions come.