Our people die well.

We saw the memorial of a man having finished dying.

His eulogist, who was his doctor, told that the sarcoma took over and took down the whole body. Who is worthy to break these seals of death, to open this closed scroll? But, this was not a eulogy of the body, nor even of its deeds. It was a eulogy of the soul. Joy was with the doctor. A beloved had gone home, a beloved, joyful to the last. Christology. Christology so comforting. Christology made so plain and real. All of this, undone! Then a quiver in the doctor's voice: this soul, this man, now at the right hand of the Father. O, longing to be there! The tremble in the voice. The tremble of hopes deferred, but for a moment. A glimmer of longing, that shone in the welling of tears in the doctor's eyes. But for a moment. The doctor's soul even leaping to join them, leaping to join them, the child so close but in the womb, yet in the womb. But for the moment.

The doctor said: "'Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals." '

And we are worshipping.

Centuries ago, on another occasion, a doctor observed to John Wesley, "Most people die for the fear of dying; but I never met with such people as yours. They are none of them afraid of death, but calm, and patient, and resigned to the last."

Wesley boasted, "Our people die well." For all of us who live so poorly that we must die: let us die well! Let us die in hope. Let us die in Christ, even now, that when we die then, we may live, as we have already done.

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