Pastor's Corner: Facing death's limit in Lent

We started the season of Lent with a meditation on mortality (Ash Wednesday - Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return), and we end the season on a day also about death (Good Friday, when Christ is crucified). Lent is bookended by death. This year, Lent is also a time of remembering what I'm calling "COVID Anniversaries." A year ago, the lockdown started ... a year ago, the death toll started rising ... a year ago, our lives as we knew them ended. Even without Lent, March holds many memories of the shock and suddenness of the pandemic and of death's long, cold reach.

Our culture is not particularly good at talking about death. Which is strange, given that our faith hinges on the death of one particular man (and, of course, his resurrection). What does it look like to think about our own deaths this Lent?

When my dad died suddenly of a heart attack in November 2020, there were plenty of hard things to deal with. One thing we didn't have to struggle with was deciding on what to do with what remained of my father. The whole family knew my dad's wishes about what resuscitation, cremation and the donation of his body as possible. In the midst of the shock and grief, it was truly such a gift to know with absolute certainty what my dad wanted. In the wilderness of grief, his wishes were like a map. Of course, knowing a few more of his wishes would be even better, like what to do with his tie collection or what songs he would want played at a memorial service. But it's the wishes immediately surrounding death and the body that are the most pertinent and important, and those we knew.

It is possible to pass that gift along, to take some steps to give that peace of mind to our loved ones. In March there will be several opportunities in the community to take part in workshops that focus on our hopes and fears about our end-of-life decisions and to make a legal advance directive. The program is called "Five Wishes," and a retired nurse will be leading us through the process of creating a "living will with a heart and soul." As "Five Wishes" bills itself: "It's written in everyday language, making it easy to understand and complete. It covers personal, spiritual, medical and legal wishes all in one document. It allows your family or caregiver to know exactly what you want, relieving them from the difficult position of guessing your wishes." "Five Wishes" is meant for the young and old, the healthy and the infirm. It costs nothing but gives much.

There are all kinds of practical benefits to completing an advance directive. But there are good theological reasons, too. Again, our culture, the church included, is not particularly good at talking about death. Have we begun to reckon with the reality of over half a million dead from COVID-19? Are we willing to face the sober truth that U.S. life expectancy is on the decline? Our culture incentivizes us to forget our mortality; like a play that asks us to suspend our disbelief to enjoy the show, we are encouraged to live as if death is not in our future. But it is.

Lent and an activity like "Five Wishes" invites us to consider death is a limit that we should accept rather than ignore. Yet, Christians ultimately believe the resurrecting love of God transcends the limits of death. This doesn't mean that we have no limits, that we should be careless with life because God's love is stronger than death; we are still mortal, and death is still a great enemy. But freed from the fear of death as an ultimate limit, we should wrestle with how to live into God's transcendent love now. How far can that love go to transform our lives, families, communities, and world while we are yet on this side of the grave?

Acknowledging death in this way might help us, like Paul tells the Corinthian church at the end of his teaching on resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, to "be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

The church is a community dedicated to supporting each other through life, and that includes end-of-life. And it includes helping each other accept the limit of death while encouraging us to live into a love that transcends death's limit. For as we approach the celebration of Easter and Christ's triumph over death, we are reminded once again that death - horrible, painful death, that terrible enemy - does not have the final word. Thanks be to God!

P.S. For anyone interested in learning more about how they might participate in a "Five Wishes" workshop, please be in touch!

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Pastor Megan Hoewisch

First Lutheran Church