Just Let It Die

Introduction

"Memento mori" is a Latin phrase which means, “remember you must die.” Often times, if we see this phrase it is usually accompanied with the picture of a skull, which is pretty cool, but also is probably too hardcore for most squishies. Perhaps, it would be hard for them to disagree with the fact that death comes for us all, but they just don’t like the way it’s communicated, preferring the Noah’s Ark version of happy animals, which is definitely more winsome and historically accurate.

Contrary to what some may believe, given the picture of the skull and all, memento mori is not the celebration of death but rather the celebration of life, or rather, the reminder of the inevitability death which is meant to encourage and motivate one to live a good life. It’s been said that educated Europeans in medieval times would place an actual skull on their desk so that death would always be present in their mind.

In fact, many Puritan settlers were so aware of death that they would have the phrase, "memento mori" engraved on their tombstone to remind the living that death will come them as well and that they should live this life with the next ever before them. All will stand before the Almighty and give an account for their lives. Best to keep this in mind before you die.

So then, memento mori is not some weird macabre obsession with death, but rather a reminder of the reality of death so that one may live a good life. You don’t need to be philosopher to figure out that life is short and goes by very fast and that death is always knocking at the chamber door like Poe’s Raven, and when it arrives it is never a welcomed guest. I don’t care who you are, death always hurts. We all have an expiration date determined by God as soon as we enter this world, and it’s appointed for all men to die once and then comes judgement. Is that a reality check? Absolutely. Is that just a wee bit humbling? To say the least.

I say all of this because one of the most prevalent aspects of upside-down world, which is almost never discussed but is everywhere present is the enslavement to death. Our culture is absolutely obsessed with death. Not in a weird Halloween, bunch of weird crap on your front lawn kind of way, or in a black hair, black lipstick, black eyeliner, I just walked out of the Matrix kind of way. But death is always in the background, always breathing down our necks.

We are a terrified, fearful people. This is seen in a multitude of ways, some subtle and some not so subtle. Like fleeing when no one pursues, or rather surrendering all of our rights, crapping all over the constitution, destroying people’s livelihoods along with the economy and creating a brave new world that will never be the same because of the flu. There are still the mentally challenged among us wearing masks alone in their car so that they don’t give themselves the eighteenth variant of a common cold.

When all the panic porn propaganda steamrolled through our country with the same love and care of a good waterboarding, people dropped everything and looked to the Government asking them what they were going to do to keep them alive. Given that the Government is always here to help they were happy to oblige. And we should all have great confidence in their ability to give and sustain life now that they can control climate and such. So what happened? Pretty much what you would expect. Our great grandchildren’s future was financed to pay the pharmaceutical companies, that ironically support the one-two party state, to pump the populace full of poison so that they don’t die from something that wasn’t going to kill them.

“All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together.” Isaiah 44:9-11

Isaiah goes on to describe how remarkably stupid it is to fashion an idol with your hands and then pray to the very thing that you just made for deliverance. These people are stupid, their eyes are shut and they cannot see. They have no discernment and their hearts cannot understand. (44:12-20). Later he describes the power of these idols as you have to carry them on your back as you are being led into captivity. (46:1-2).

So yes, idolatry makes you stupid. But idolatry is seeking something or someone other than the one true and living God to deliver us from death. At the heart of upside-down world is idolatry being brought to its logical conclusion like a clown car rolling down the street without wheels, and behind all of this insanity is the fear of death.

Enslaved to Death

Our fear of death is everywhere always present in everything. Obviously the way people reacted to the shamdemic and all the panic porn and rank stupidity that followed is a clear and painful example. The full effects of which we will never be able to calculate. As it turns out, idolatry is very expensive generationally.

However, our fear of death also rears its head in a multitude of ways culturally as well. Like our incessant unwillingness to come to terms with the aging process which inevitably ends in death. This has created an absolute obsession with youth culture and every industry that has been created around it trying to make people look younger than they are as if we are fooling anyone. Instead of honoring the aged and seeing a certain beauty in growing old we hate the elderly because they remind us of the inevitability of death.

Proverb 16:31 says,

“Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.”

Also,

“The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” Proverbs 20:29

And,

“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

Instead of glory, we get Just for Men, which means you get a guy who’s in his fifties but has jet black hair because that looks totally natural. Or you get guys in their fifties that are more ripped than they were in their twenties because taking steroids is now socially acceptable, even if you’re running for President. When I was a kid we called it juicing, and considered it cheating, and thought people who juiced had little nuts and thought it was funny. Now, it’s just called replacement therapy and it’s considered fine as long as you get it from the same pharmaceutical companies that we suspected were selling us poison, but when it comes to steroids, I’m sure they are on the up-and-up.

We also get women in the fifties and sixties, or if you work in D.C., in your early hundreds, that are so pumped full of silicone and botox that it’s questionable whether or not you’re still technically human. Or when women in their fifties and sixties have their faces stretched so tight that it looks like a freshly made military bed which is not creepy at all. It’s the same way with the actor or the politician who is in their sixties with the brand-new porcelain grill. None of this is kidding anyone. Just F.Y.I., it is also creepy if you have dazzling white horse teeth.

Idolatry is weird and ass backwards, and idols never deliver on their promises, in fact, just the opposite. We obsess over youth and are unwilling to age gracefully, and yet we are being led by a bunch of white-washed tombs. Most politicians are older than Moses and look worse than Voldemort…As evidenced by Lord Palpatine’s, I mean Diane Feinstein’s death while still serving in the Senate at the vivacious young age of one hundred and eighty-three and also the Weekend at Bernie’s Presidency that we’ve all been living through the last few years.

In a very weird way, we just can’t let go. Indiana Jones five, or Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released this past summer. Granted, Disney has never been able to pass up a cash grab, but continually trying to resurrect old properties with the original actors for nostalgia sake is not profitable. Not surprisingly, this movie bombed. In part, because is sucked, but primarily because Harrison Ford is eighty one years old, and no amount of CGI is going to convince anyone otherwise.

It's the same thing with Sylvester Stallone still playing an action hero at seventy-seven years old. We think that if we can keep these characters alive that somehow we can exist in this eerie reality where people are unaffected by the onslaught of aging and death. Ironically, the nostalgia that we think is keeping us alive, is smothering us to death.

Ironically, another thing that is smothering us to death is our “safety culture.” Helen Keller once said,

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

As college students habitat their styrofoam padded safe spaces while cuddling their therapy hamsters they think that somehow they are safe from the afflictions of life the worst of which being death. I suppose existing in a padded cell for a time may keep you alive, but in the end I would hope that we can all agree that is not a life worth living nor is it really worthy of being called life.

Christians are also often guilty of the same things, and we are usually way more influenced by the culture around us than we care to admit, but often times, our inability to just let go comes in the form of institutions, and ministries and even churches. God often shakes things up to strengthen what remains, but often the life that remains takes on a new resurrected form. An institution closes and another opens. A ministry stops while another starts. A local church closes while another one opens.

Usually our unwillingness to acknowledge that these things happen and our inability to put to death something that once had much life and move on usually creates a monstrosity of what was once loved, kind of like Pet Cemetery scenario minus the ancient Indian burial ground. Think of Princeton, or Harvard or Yale. Obviously, none look like they did when they were founded. In fact, they are disgusting monsters of what they once were. This is the same with many ministries, organizations, networks and even local churches. There is a time to be born and a time to die (Ecc. 3:2).

Ironically, our fear of death consumes and controls our way of life. We may not think this is the case, but most certainly it is. A slave has every single aspect of his life under the control of his master. The author of Hebrews says that, through Christ, we have been delivered from the slavery of the lifelong fear of death.

“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” Hebrews 2:14-15

As the world denies death in order to grope at life, the Christian embraces the reality of death so that we may receive eternal life. We acknowledge that death entered the world through sin and that the wages for sin is death and that all, including ourselves have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We acknowledge that death is the sentence that we must all face as a result. Surprisingly, it’s not the unknown of death that concerns us, but rather what we all know too well, namely, that’s it’s appointed for all men to die and then comes judgement.

We know that God is holy and that we have sinned against Him, and that no matter how hard we try we cannot make ourselves good enough to stand before Him, nor can we cheat death. No matter what we dye, or implant, or lift, or nip, or tuck, or remove, or manipulate we aren’t outrunning the Hound of Heaven.

The only safe space that exists is in Christ. The only place where man hears the words, “fear not” is in Christ. He lived the righteous life that we could not live and died the death that we deserved to die. So that, through repentance and faith in Jesus, in His death we die and in His resurrection life we live. None of this means that we won’t suffer in this life and none of this means that we won’t experience the ravages of aging and ultimately death in this life.

What is does mean, however, is that we fear none of those things. For freedom, Christ has set us live. Free from the fear of aging and free from the fear of death, because we are alive together with Him. Christ is our life, therefore, death, though still ever present has lost its sting. The devil no longer has anything to taunt us with. Our judgement has already been received in Christ. Therefore, death for the child of God becomes the means through which we experience unending, joy-filled life.

Conclusion

"Memento mori" is a Latin phrase which means, “remember you must die.” We remember that we will die so that, we seek to make every moment count. Perhaps another of saying this is that all things in life will soon but pass, only what’s done for Christ will last. As the world seeks to hold onto life thus strangling it to death, the Christian is free to let go of this life to receive that which is eternal life. The unregenerate seeks to evade death through this life and only receives death upon death. The saint receives their death in the death of Christ and is free to truly live.

What a wonderful gift we have to offer a dead and dying world: life. Christ holds the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Those who are enchained and enslaved to the lifelong fear of death need only turn to the Author of life to be released from their bondage so that they may hear the words, “Fear not.”