Death's Door

Do you ever wonder what heaven is like?  I do.  It’s the getting there that scares me!  The best book I ever read about it is the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn.  If you are wondering, read it.  But there remains the getting to heaven part; like the song says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

The prospect of death as we observe it from this side of life is often frightening.  I think because we just do not know what it will be like, how it will feel and the total unknown of it all makes us guarded.  We don’t run to death, we don’t even like to talk about it.

One minute we are taking a breath and the next minute, it becomes our last breath.  We are gone, leaving behind the body in which we have lived our entire existence. How can we hope to even have a clue about the process of dying, it is foreign to everything we have ever known.

But we do have some clues, given us by the only resident of heaven and earth to actually go through death and then return to life, Jesus.  Do his words have any instruction or encouragement for us in this the most unknown of all journeys every one must take?

I believe they do. 

To begin, have you ever been away from home?  When I went to college, I lived three hours from home, away from all that was familiar to me.  Still, I was thrilled to be on my own, living and making my own rules and schedules.  What young person doesn’t enjoy being free of parental restrictions, having the chance to prove themselves in the world?  No younger siblings to pester and annoy me.  No Saturday chores that had to be finished before the weekend began.  I was the captain of my ship.  And yet, those familiar routines and the affections of family were also gone.  Even though I could decorate my half of the dorm room in whatever way I choose, I missed that particular way my mother could make a room welcoming.  Although my meals were my choice, somehow a cafeteria table was just not the same as the dinner table at home with all of my family around it and my mother’s homemade dessert on the menu. 

Even with the reality of new of freedoms and new responsibilities, the lure of home was strong.  I just missed home.   There was one time I decided to surprise my family and go home for a weekend visit.  Since I had no car, travel entailed a three hour train ride north to the city and then a commuter train ride to my town and then a walk to my house.  I remember hoping that my visit would be a good surprise for my family.  They must have missed me, right?  When I got to my house I stood at the front door and wondered if I should knock, or just walk in.  It was my house, but the door stood between me and all that I loved in the house. 

And that is what I picture when I think about death; a door.  It is the one thing that stands between me and all that I love, and all who love me.  Just a door.  Do you recall Jesus saying in John 10:7 that He is the door?  The door that stands in the space linking life and heaven is the One who had proven His love for us by dying for us. Yet it is still daunting. 

I still must take that step through the door.  But how wide is a door threshold?  The span of one step?  It is perhaps twelve inches total, from one side to the other.  That is what stands between all I love and me.  Two questions arise from this; do I really love what is on the other side of the door, and do I really know what is on the other side?  Perhaps some of the fear of death results from being unfamiliar with the God we claim to follow.  If we really don’t know Him well, know what He has said, what He has promised, then it will feel strange and daunting.  Rather like knocking on the door of a stranger. 

But if over our lifetime He has become Father to us, and like an older brother, then it is like family.  If we have sent ahead all our treasure, then it is like our safe place, our dream home.  If we have talked daily to Him about all things on our minds, if we have argued with Him,  if we have wept with Him and felt His comfort, then it is a place of peace and calm. If we have disappointed Him, failed Him, sinned against Him and yet been forgiven then it is a place of welcome, of forgiveness, of love. 

The door, which leads to all we have ever longed for, all we were made for is just a door, a threshold to be stepped over.  For all who are redeemed, death is not a dead end, death is not a stranger’s door, it is the way home.