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Is There Ever a Right Time to Die?

I remember what may well have been the most difficult funeral I ever presided over. It was
my first funeral. Not just the first funeral where I was the officiant, but the first funeral I ever
attended. In my lifetime I had never even seen the inside of a funeral home. I had been in
ministry for a total of no more than twenty days when I got the call from an elderly lady in our
church. There was a death in her family. Her sixteen year old grandson had been killed in a car
wreck. Their family did not have a church. Would I be willing to do the service?

Since that time I have officiated at well over 100 funerals, the lion’s share of which were here in
Charleston. All of them have been hard. Some were hard because they were so tragic. Young
people dying in car accidents are extremely difficult. But deaths by suicide are perhaps even
more tragic. Then there are the people who died at a ripe old age, but did not know the Lord.
Can there be anything more tragic than that?

By the way, which is worse, to die suddenly or through a lengthy illness? When you die
suddenly, you experience little pain and don’t have time to fear death. But then, you don’t
get to say goodbye to your loved ones, either. But when you die a slow death, there is time to
think about death and to fear it. On top of that there is the pain and discouragement of growing
sicker and feebler, and the burden put on loved ones to care for you.

Which is better, to die young before “your time,” or old beyond “your time?” Is it better to be
mourned by many who, though they bemoan your early death, will remember you in the prime
of life? Or is it better to live to old age when you have outlived most of your peers? No one
mourns your early passing. But relatively few people even remember what you were like in
your younger days.

Is there ever a “right time” to die? I’ve never heard someone who lost a dearly loved one
say, “Glad to see him or go. Good timing.” The only times in which we welcome death for
ourselves or our loved ones is when death brings an end to suffering. But it is the end of
suffering, not the end of life, certainly not the departure of the person we loved, that we
welcome. Even then, the grief is severe. We all know husbands and wives who for months, even
years, wore themselves out taking care of spouses who died of debilitating illnesses. You might
think that when death came, they would be relieved, but instead, their grief is intensified.

Any way you look at it, there never seems to be a good time to die. Well, almost never. For
one particular person, someone very near and dear to us, it was the right time for him to die.
And even though the very thought of how he died makes us cringe, we cannot help but admit
that we are glad he died. If Jesus had not died, we would still be in our sins, without hope in
the world. But because Jesus died and rose again, death is swallowed up in victory.