Death in Christian preaching reveals human frailty and the vanity of earthly glory, reminding believers of life's brevity and uncertainty (Hebrews 9:27). It is portrayed as a mysterious and necessary passage from temporal life to eternal destiny, often depicted through imagery of fleeting candles and sudden transitions (Psalm 90:10). Death calls for readiness and trust in God's sovereign plan.
Death humbles the proud by revealing human frailty and sinfulness instantly.
It is therefore death alone that can suddenly make man to know himself. He tells the proud and insolent that they are but abjects, and humbles them at the instant: makes them cry, complain, and repent, yes, even to hate their forepassed happiness. He takes the account of the rich, and proves him a beggar, a naked beggar, which hath interest in nothing but in the gravel that fills his mouth. He holds a glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, and makes them see their deformity and rottenness, and they acknowledge it. Raleigh.
Charlemagne's royal burial shows death's power to reduce earthly glory to vanity.
Charlemagne gave instructions, that, when he died, he should be buried in a royal position, seated in the attitude of a ruling monarch. He had the mausoleum erected after the model of the chapel which had been reared over the sepulchre of our Saviour at Jerusalem. In a tomb within this chapel, he was placed upon a throne. The Gospels, which I suppose he had often read whilst he was living, he would appear determined to study thoroughly after he was dead. He directed that they should be laid upon his knees before him: by his side was his celebrated sword; upon his head was an imperial crown; and a royal mantle covered his lifeless shoulders. Thus his body remained for about one hundred and eighty years. Nearly a thousand years after Christ, the tomb was opened by the Emperor Otho. The skeleton form of the body was found there, dissolved and dismembered; the various ornaments were all there too: but the frame had sunk into fragments, the bones had fallen disjointed and asunder; and there remained nothing but the ghastly skull wearing its crown still, and nothing to signify royalty but this vain pageant of death in its most hideous form. The various relics were taken up, and are now preserved at Vienna; and they have often since been employed in the coronation of the emperors of Germany, in order to signify their greatness, and their being successors of Charlemagne. Dr. Massie.
Death is a profound mystery bridging time and eternity beyond human understanding.
Death has a deep meaning and many issues. We cannot by our searching find it out. None of us have seen its other side. Death is like a mighty angel, with one foot standing on time, and another on eternity. Arnot.
The soul is always near death, poised to enter eternal destiny at any moment.
What is said to the mariner in respect to his ship (that he always sails within four inches of death) that may be said of the soul in relation to the body, — that it is always within four inches of eternity. If the ship splits, then the sailor sinks; if our earthly vessel break, the soul is gone, plunged forever in the bottomless sea and bankless ocean of eternity. The soul that shall precipitately launch into the deep before he knows whether he shall sink or swim is an object of commiseration.
Death is necessary for life's renewal and to prevent burdensome prolonging of old age.
When I die, the centre of a widely-extended family will be taken away; and yet it is scarcely desirable that such a centre should continue very long after one's children have acquired a position of their own. They will each form their own new and special circles in the time to come. But while an old man, with the remains of his former strength, sits on in the centre, a thouand concessions are made to him by all the other families; and horns are drawn in which are intended to be thrust with vigor, or to be rubbed off, as the case may be. The old must give place to the new. And as to the gray-beard himself; when time has tugged at us long, we cease to do more than vegetate; we become a burden to ourselves and to others; and, what is worst of all, we get a horrible longing for a still longer life. When I look at many old men around, I am reminded of Frederick the Great's expostulation with his grenadiers, who demurred at going to a certain death, "What, you dogs! would you go on living forever?" Perthes.
A dying woman experienced unconsciousness, showing death can be peaceful and painless.
Madame Swetchine seemed to be suffering dreadfully. She was dying of dropsy: "deep incisions" were hastily made by the physician. The harrowing scene continued most of the day; but by night "the suffocation sensibly diminished, and the effusion of water on the brain was arrested." She was herself again, and could converse with her attendants the next day. And now a singular and most relieving revelation followed, — one that should comfort all sympathetic witnesses of similar scenes. "Saturday morning she said to me," writes the count, "Yesterday is a blank tablet for me. I can recall nothing of those twenty-four hours. Even this morning, I have but fragments of ideas." A visitor remarked to her, "Do you know that yesterday you received extreme unction?" She replied very calmly, "I did not know it: why did they not tell me sooner?" She had, in fact, been unconscious of the whole scene which had smitten physician, priest, and all the household with inexpressible terror. She was indeed dying, and gradually sunk away, but with the serenity and beauty of the setting sun, — without even a memory of the apparently frightful crisis.
Often the well die while the dying live, showing death's unexpected nature.
A minister says, that he was called, early one morning, by a wife to visit her dying husband. She appeared to be in perfect health. They knelt to pray with the dying man, and, when prayer was concluded, he found the wife in the last struggle of the mortal conflict; and the dying husband mingled his cries with the frenzied family. Often the well die, and the dying live.
Death comes to all people regardless of status, fulfilling God's appointed time.
No sex is spared, no age exempt. The majestic and courtly roads which monarchs pass over, the way that men of letters tread, the path the warrior traverses, the short and simple annals of the poor,—all lead to the same place; all terminate, however varied in their routes, in that one enormous house which is appointed for all living. One short sentence closes the biography of every man, as if in mockery of the unsubstantial pretensions of human pride,—"The days of the years of Methuselah were 969 years; and he died." There is the end of it: "And he died." Such is the frailty of this boasted man. "It is appointed unto men"—unto all men—"once to die."
— W. M. Punshon
Death equalizes all people, regardless of earthly rank or position.
As in chess-play, so long as the game is playing, all the men stand in their order, and are respected according to their places,—first the king, then the queen, then the bishops, after them the knights, and, last of all, the common soldiers; but when once the game is ended, and the table taken away, then they are all confusedly tumbled into a bag, and haply the king is lowest, and the pawn upmost. Even so it is with us in this life: the world is a huge theatre or stage, wherein some play the parts of kings, others of bishops, some lords, many knights, and others yoemen; but death sends all alike to the grave and to the judgment. Spencer.
Many face death unprepared, missing the opportunity for salvation and judgment.
How often we hear the mournful exclamation, "Too late!" from men who come up to the doors of a bank just as the key has turned in the lock; or up to the great gates of a railway terminus just as they swing to, and tell the tardy traveller he has lost his train; or up to the post-office just as the mail has been despatched: but how should we tremble, if our ears could receive the despairing cry of souls whom the stony gaze of that grim messenger has fixed in sin forever!
Life is like a candle burning out, fragile and irreplaceable.
A little girl was asked why she was working so very hard. She replied, "My candle is almost burned out; and I have not got another." Life is as a candle burning out. Sometimes there is a thief in it, a disease consuming it more quickly; or it may be blown out, suddenly extinguished: and we have not got another.
— Dr. Wise
Life's uncertainty is shown by a mistaken burial and sudden death.
At West Bend, Wis., recently, a clergyman started for a small country-place, a few miles away, for the purpose of reading the burial-prayers over a lady who was that day to be interred. On the way, the horse, a high-spirited animal, ran away, throwing the gentleman from the cutter, and killing him instantly. The funeral was in consequence delayed; and a while after the time when it would, but for the accident, have taken place, the lady rose from the coffin, having been in a trance for two days. The unfortunate minister was buried in the grave which had been made to receive the lady's supposed dead body.
Sleep is a peaceful, mysterious state likened to death and a remnant of innocence.
Description of. Sleep, death's beautiful brother, fairest phenomenon, poetical reality, thou sweet collapsing of the weary spirit, thou mystery that every one knows, thou remnant of primeval innocence and bliss; for Adam slept in paradise. To sleep,—there's a drowsy mellificence in the very word that would almost serve to interpret its meaning,—to shut up the senses and hoodwink the soul; to dismiss the world; to escape from one's self; to be in ignorance of our own existence; to stagnate upon the earth, just breathing out the hours, not living them; "Doing no mischief, only dreaming of it;" neither merry nor melancholy, something between both, and better than either. Best friend of frail humanity; and, like all other friends, it is best estimated in its loss.
— Longfellow
Time passes swiftly and reminds us of life's brevity and approaching death.
When young, our years are ages; in mature life, they are three hundred and sixty-five days; in old age, they have dwindled to a few weeks. Time is, indeed, the messenger with wings at his feet.
Yesterday, he took my wife; to-day, my son;
to-morrow, he will take me.
Madame de Gasparin.
