The Onion on Death

Leave it to The Onion to make a profound statement about day to day death.

I truly enjoy satire and irony, and find them to be immensely powerful tools for both humor and for making a point. The Onion does both extremely well, and sometimes their 'articles' are so well written that they (knowingly or not) go far beyond an impolite jab at this or that issue or person in the news to expose a deep truth.

Today's update on 'millions of people dying every month' is an example of just such an item. It is funny because it takes something that has been happening the same way for hundreds of years (indeed, since the fall of humanity in the Garden) and treats it as if it is headline worthy news. What we all know, though, is that nobody would bother publishing such a report in a non-satirical newspaper. They would not publish it because people die every day, especially of 'natural causes.'

But that's the thing, is it not? People die every day, and for the most part little changes in our lives. Most of us do not personally know someone that dies every day. Even when we lose loved ones, we set up protective boundaries to soften the blow. Life insurance - clearly a necessity these days - is a great example of how we're already working while we're alive to ensure that our own death is least disruptive to those we love and who love us. It is not bad or evil to be prepared - I have life insurance myself. Just because I don't believe society has an appropriate understanding of death does not mean I will neglect my family when my time does come.

What's more important to me as a pastor is that I proclaim without ceasing that we in the Christian church have the answers that doctors, scientists, philosophers, kings and politicians cannot provide - we have an answer for why everyone is dying. Of course, the professionals can tell you a multitude of causes of death - murder, collision, cancer, drowning, etc. - but they cannot tell you the cause behind the cause. We in the church believe that sin is ultimately behind every death. We believe that apart from sin there would be no death. When someone dies of 'natural causes,' it should actually be said that they died 'because of their nature.' Truly, every death, from the first murder in history to each one of our deaths, happens on account of our nature.

Far more important than proclaiming the cause of death, however, is that I proclaim even more without ceasing the cause for life - the forgiveness and salvation won by Christ on the cross and given to us sacramentally in his church. Only Christ gives life, and at that gives it eternally! We can never lose sight of the promised redemption we have in eternity, and we can never stop proclaiming it to the world around us.

College students are notoriously bad about considering their own death in the future - and so I will keep preaching the same message of death and life; Jesus' death for our eternal life, that is, so that they need not fear this grave pandemic that truly threatens all of us.