Tuesday we put down our 19-year-old cat, Madison.<\/p>\n
We got Madison from a shelter when he was a few weeks old. He had big eyes, a cute face, and a playful spirit. Our youngest son, Joel, was two. Over the next few years, Joel regularly would throw Madison over his shoulder and carry him around the house. Madison peered at us, wide-eyed, asking to be saved from this terror of a boy \u2013 but not scratching, ever.<\/p>\n
At age 3, traumatized and in shock after an attack by a large canine, Madison stayed downstairs in our Massachusetts basement for weeks, recovering. After that, I don\u2019t think he was ever sick for a day.<\/p>\n
Until Monday. He was sluggish. He wailed. He vomited \u2013 first his food, then clear liquid.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, he was in obvious distress. The vet thought he knew what was wrong; he could do a series of procedures for an estimated $1000 that he thought would solve the problem. The prognosis was good, but not definite. The problem might reoccur. Madison might only live a few more months. Or he might live several more years. Beth and I spoke on the phone; we put him down. I stroked Madison\u2019s cheek while the vet injected him with barbiturates.<\/p>\n
Now, as encounters with death go, this was quite minor. A cat \u2013 even a beloved pet \u2013 is a cat. In what follows, I\u2019m not drawing any degree of equivalence between a cat\u2019s death and a person\u2019s death. Nevertheless, Madison\u2019s demise prompted me to reflect more widely on the way our culture \u2013 and I myself \u2013 speak of and respond to death. So here are some thoughts:<\/p>\n
I have little firsthand experience with death. I have never been in the presence of a person when he or she died. A few hours before death, and minutes afterward, yes. But never at the point itself.<\/p>\n
I suspect my lack of experience is common for Americans. We live sanitized lives. We know death is certain, but, for many, it is hidden, shrouded, filed away from consciousness \u2013 something we encounter in theaters and in television and in books, but not in our day-to-day lives. In this way we fail to come to terms with our own mortality: Unless Jesus returns in the next few decades, I will die. <\/i>Like Madison, my breathing will cease, my heart will stop. \u00a0I will die.<\/p>\n
Our sanitized lives extend to the euphemisms we use when referring to death \u2013 even of our pets. Did you notice the euphemism I used above? \u201cWe put him down.\u201d Well. I \u201cput Madison down\u201d when he was \u201cmaking biscuits\u201d on my thighs, sticking his claws into me. What happened Tuesday was rather more significant than that. And note the use of the first person plural, deflecting responsibility from myself. I could have said straightforwardly, \u201cI told the vet to kill my cat.\u201d But we almost never use such language. We soften the blow.<\/p>\n
Scripture usually is quite straightforward about death. \u201cOn the day you eat of it you shall surely die\u201d (Genesis 2:17). Eight times in Genesis 5, we read, \u201cAnd he died.\u201d Job\u2019s children all die in a building collapse (Job 1:18-19). The patriarchs all die. David dies. Solomon dies. Most of all, Jesus dies.<\/p>\n
Thus, \u201cBecause of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man\u201d <\/b>(Romans 5:17). Yet here in the US for so much of the time we can live our lives pretending that death only reigns theoretically, only reigns in films and television and literature. Even the death of a cat can challenge that pretension.<\/p>\n
We use euphemisms and fail to speak frankly about death in order to help those encountering death, attempting to be kind and caring. Yet is it really kind and caring to act as if death is not ever-present, not threatening?<\/p>\n
For when we downplay death, we inevitably downplay the resurrection<\/i>.<\/p>\n
For the Bible\u2019s answer to the severity of death, to the horror of death, is not to soften the language and to help people to maintain an illusion of safety and immortality in this earthly existence. The Bible\u2019s answer to the threat of death is to look it in the eye, to admit its horrors \u2013 and then to show us God\u2019s plan of redemption, through Jesus\u2019 death and resurrection!<\/p>\n
For Jesus was dead, really dead. It was painful. It was horrible. His lungs filled with fluid. His breathing stopped. His heart stopped. He was dead.<\/p>\n
And yet: God raised Him from the dead.<\/p>\n
Imagine my reaction had I gone out early this morning to Madison\u2019s little grave in our backyard, and found the dirt moved away, the hole empty – and imagine I then felt Madison rubbing against my leg! \u201cHe\u2019s alive! He\u2019s here! In the flesh! How did that happen? How can this possibly be? Yet here he is \u2013 furry and warm and purring and cuddly!\u201d<\/p>\n
How incomparably greater the joy and amazement of the disciples upon seeing the risen Jesus!<\/p>\n
My friends, God promises to \u201cswallow up death forever\u201d (Isaiah 25:8). Jesus has
\n\u201cbroken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel\u201d (2 Timothy 1:10 NET). If we downplay the power of death, if we downplay death as \u201cthe last enemy\u201d (1 Corinthians 15:26), we downplay the power of the resurrection and the accomplishment of Jesus.<\/p>\n
God did not create us for death. For His people, for those united to His Son, for those who believe in His Name, who walk according to the Spirit, He promises: \u201cThe time will come when death will be no more. The old order will pass away. I will wipe every tear from your eyes. Everlasting joy shall be upon your heads\u201d (Revelation 21:4, Isaiah 35:10).<\/p>\n
Death entered the world because of sin. It is the last enemy.<\/p>\n
But we, in Christ, can look death in the eye. We can acknowledge its power.<\/p>\n
And we can know that He who mightily raised Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies, so that we too might have eternal life (Romans 8:11). Praise God for the Gospel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuesday we put down our 19-year-old cat, Madison. We got Madison from a shelter when he was a few weeks old. He had big eyes, a cute face, and a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15],"tags":[381,477,480,896,1338,1529],"class_list":["post-1489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","tag-death","tag-eternal-life","tag-euphemisms","tag-last-enemy","tag-resurrection","tag-swallow-up-death-forever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1489"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1489\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}