OCM Vol23 Page34 Questions to Heaven--Life

A German theologian was born on February 4, 1906 and was killed by the German Nazis on April 9, 1945. His final words were: "This is the end of life. As far as I am concerned, however, this is the beginning of life."

Some has asked me this question: "All the discussions about hardships are meaningful only to survivors. But what do they mean to the deceased? Survivors drag on while the dead rests." Dead bodies do not know, and can care less, about all human agonies that remain on earth. The tragedy of losing a family member only belongs to survivors. What does it mean to Dr. Martin, to Wen's deceased wife, or to my little sister (Editor's note: these three were the characters described in the previous three parts of the series of Questions to Heaven)? What does Christian belief have to do with death?

"Don't even try to tell me such buzz words as беbelieve and go to heaven'. Worse if they are followed by беgo to hell if you don't believe'! While I painfully weep for Dr. Martin's sudden death, please do not hurt me more with these nonsensical words like heaven and hell or final judgment. He is dead. He is dead! He can no longer hear my voice. He can no longer see me cry. He is no more, non-existent. He can no longer answer meбK" I was not a believer in Christ at that time and death was known to me as complete despair. Some quickly pointed out that I didn't make it clear how I became a believer in Questions to Heaven Part I published in Issue Seven of Overseas Campus, where I talked about Dr. Martin's death. I hope I can make it a little clearer this time around.

I traveled to another city to spread the Gospel as scheduled. To my great surprise, however, I heard the bad news that morning that Sister Yue had just passed away. I couldn't afford to shut myself in the room and cry, nor did I have the luxury to offer help to her family in funeral arrangements. I had to control myself and continue to prepare notes for an evening speech. As I was staring at my notes, however, I saw nothing but Sister Yue's faces: a richly-built face with thick, graceful hair; a pale face that lost most of the hair due to chemical therapy; a face with tears; a face with smilesбK Oh, Sister Yue, what can I say to my fellows on the day of your departure?

We were mere acquaintances when I first met Sister Yue. She was the sister of one of my best friends; she was a housewife, a bit quick-tempered and had been a believer for quite a few years. She was by no means among my inner circle, nor was she considered a great Christian; she was simply a common person among the most common. When she started to become one of my best friends, her cancer had already reached an advanced stage. Who could have imagined that it was her fatal disease that brought us together? Who could have thought that I was supposed to walk her through the final portion of her life? And who could have expected that death had created an opportunity for us, Sister Yue and I, to get to know each other?

Yue's sister asked me to get together with Yue in Bible study and prayers, and she hoped to bring her some comfort. I had no idea how much I was really able to do. After all, it was Sister Yue who was being threatened by death, not me. How could I even be qualified to say anything to her at all? Nonetheless, I promised to give it a try. Terrified? Surprisingly, I was not. Was it that I had had enough experience with life and death in the past so that I became indifferent? Not at all. Indeed, the true experience of mourning for the dead only made me all the more terrified and more reluctant to face the dead again because such experience was indeed too harsh to bear. My heart was extremely heavy. Oh Lord, what do you want me to do to Sister Yue? It never dawned on me, however, that God gave me this opportunity, not to do something to Sister Yue, but to receive what Sister Yue was going to do to me. Although Yue might not realize it, but what she did to me far exceeded what I did to her.

The doctor had already pronounced to her family that Sister Yue's disease was incurable and that the best we could possibly do was to help her reduce pain. Her situation could deteriorate in a matter of days and death completely overshadowed her. At first, Sister Yue's bravery in facing and accepting the harsh reality made me feel a little better. None of us attempted to avoid the topic of her approaching death. I believed this was the most natural way. I wasn't extremely surprised at Yue's attitude because we were all Christians and we all knew where we were heading toward. Nevertheless, there was still a difference between rational belief and practicality of life. Before I reached the end of life, I didn't dare to say I would have enough courage when death did come. And for those who accompanied a dying person, it would be unreasonable for them not to fear. After all, no living being among us had ever walked through the path of death. Being a companion of the dying was easier said than done. I painfully felt that I really couldn't accompany her. Even if death had also come to me at the same time, I still wouldn't have been able to accompany her all the way, nor would she to me. Who can claim to be a companion of a dying person? Death is absolutely lonely and personal. It is natural for us to fear death as nobody has any experience about death.

Human intellect tells us that death can indiscriminately hit anybody of all age groups. But it was still beyond my comprehension to see Sister Yue having to prepare for death at only 48 when her parents were both alive and healthy. It was hard to believe the gray-haired would survive the black-haired. When I was with her, I had never heard of any complaints from her. Perhaps her hopeless battle had already been fought and she had already calmed down to take whatever was happening to her. I didn't dare to cry in front of Sister Yue and I was completely speechless. I was grateful that Sister Yue's tears and her straightforward talks managed to ease me a little bit. I wasn't much of an acquaintance to her, nor was I older or more experienced than her; to my surprise, however, she was able to completely accept me and trust me and be open to me with all the pains and sadness she had in her heart as she had already turned her eyes to the heavenly father. To a dying person, all worldly values and human significance were gone except for the most fundamental. Who I was and how much we knew each other weren't important. What was important was I was a sister to her in Christ and we had a common language: sooner or later we would all face the Lord, the Father who created us and saved us. Weren't we ready to go back to Lord's kingdom and face our one and only Lord? Sister Yue was a bit restless. She cried and told me that she had not anxiously prayed for the salvation of her family members, nor performed enough testimonial deeds to bring them to the Lord, nor made enough efforts to spread the Gospel, nor tried her very best to serve othersбK All regrets came back to her. She was remorseful that it was all too late now and that she didn't have time to make up for them!

Sister Yue's quick temper was long gone. She was now gentle and calm, a patient that could feel the pain of others. In fact she didn't cry much. Her ailing condition weakened her and she was quick to get tired. Except for listening to me reading the Bible and praying, she spent most of the time during the day closing her eyes and lying on the armchair which the pastor and his wife donated to her. Visitors were frequent: her parents, her brothers and sisters and other relatives, and many other brothers and sisters from church. She was weak but she always greeted her visitors with smiles. Some visitors intended to entertain her with video tapes. It was unfittingly loud but she never complained. She would calmly lie on the armchair and let them entertain themselves.

Death, as negation of life, is full of cruelty, ugliness and horror. When cancer cells invaded her lungs causing breathing problems, Sister Yue had to receive emergency treatment several times. It was extremely unbearable to see her graceful figure quickly getting dried up, thick dark hair now mostly gone, thighs getting thinner and thinner without muscle and knee bones standing out above everything else. It was astonishing how one's invaluable life could diminish to a thin layer of dry skin, pitiably covering a set of protruding skeleton. Nevertheless, death could also be graceful at the same time! I could never forget Sister Yue's smiles in her final days. Every time I went to see her in the hospital, she always greeted me with smiles despite the fact she could hardly get up. Her smiles were pale and weak and those of a dying person, but they emitted a kind of inner light, too weak to be seen and yet too strong to be ignored and too magnificent to be overshadowed by death. Her physical body was almost completely destroyed in ailment, but her smiles became all the more beautiful. They came from deep inside her and illuminated her entire person as well as everybody around her. I wanted to come to see her again and her family also wanted me to come to accompany her more often. I knew there wasn't much time left. She knew it too, perhaps better than I did. Perhaps because of this she was able to smile with ease and say nothing.

What Do Men Live On?

One day before she was hospitalized, Sister Yue spoke to me of her concerns after death. She cried and said that she wasn't afraid of death but she was most concerned about her two young daughters still in childhood. Who would care for these motherless kids? Who would provide guidance? Their father cared for them a lot but nobody could play the role of a mother. With various worldly temptations, she felt sorry that she didn't have enough time to develop Christian belief in them. Her husband didn't have enough faith in Christ. What would happen if her children were contaminated with social immorality?бK

I had never seen Sister Yue so grievous before. Holding her shoulders, I was extremely painful at heart, and yet I didn't dare to cry and I couldn't cry. Sister Yue's condition didn't allow her to be grievous; how could I afford to worsen the situation? I was completely helpless. I struggled and I cried to the Lord deep in heart: "Have mercy on us, Oh Lord! Grand me wisdom to comfort Sister Yue, and give to me right now! бK" Then instantly my prayer was answered! In my chaotic and empty brain, a long forgotten story surfaced up like a movieбK

Simon was a poor shoemaker. One day he unintentionally saved a naked stranger in the snow. His wife, however, didn't want the stranger to stay. Simon said he couldn't see the stranger die in the snow: "Don't you have God in your heart?" His wife then listened to him. She brought out their only bread and prepared dinner. At this time, Simon noticed that the stranger emitted his very first smile.

The stranger became an excellent helper for Simon. Soon he became the best shoemaker in town and gained a lot fame. The stranger rarely said a word. He worked diligently but he never smiled again till a full year had passed. His second smile filled Simon and his wife with astonishment and awe. It happened when a healthy and wealthy man came to their store, having heard all the great things about the stranger. The man asked the stranger to tailor make a pair of leather shoes that would last for one year. The stranger didn't look at the customer but he kept looking at what was behind him even though there was nothing there. Then the stranger smiled and his face glowed. After the wealthy man had left, Simon and his wife were astonished to see that the stranger didn't make leather shoes as requested, but he used the expensive leather material the wealthy man bought from a foreign country and made out of it a pair of slippers specially designed for the dead at funerals. What was more astonishing was that news came to them that same evening that the wealthy man had passed away. It was hard to imagine such a healthy and strong man could abruptly lose his life. So now he no longer needed leather shoes for the living. What he needed were slippers for the dead.

Six years later, a woman brought two twin girls in to have shoes made for them. One of the girls was crippled in one leg. The stranger seldom stopped working, but now he completely stopped to listen to their conversation. The two twin girls were orphans the woman adopted from her neighbor. When they were born six years earlier, their mother was seriously ill. She fell down on one of the twins and broke her leg. The kind-hearted adopted mother raised them up and loved them. Later her own son was dead and she loved them more than ever. Simon's wife praised her and said: "It is indeed true that one can survive without parents; but one cannot live without God." The stranger smiled for the third time and his whole body shone with magnificent light.

Then the stranger told Simon and his wife that he was an angel. Six years ago, God sent him to take a woman's soul back to heaven. The woman had just given birth to two twin daughters, and she cried and begged the angel to leave her alone to raise her daughters. Their father had just passed away and the woman was afraid the children would not be able to survive without parents. The angel disobeyed God and left the woman alone. But God sent the angel again. This time God made the angel to stay among men to find the answers to three questions God gave him: What do men have? What do men not know? What do men live on? When the mother was departing from earth, the angel saw with his own eyes that she fell down and broke one of the girls' leg. At the same time the angel's wings were blown away in the wind and he fell into the world naked.

I smiled three times because God had given me answers to his three questions. When I was cold and hungry, you made me stay with you. I saw in your face the image of God and I understood God's first question: What do men have? Men have love! When the wealthy man came and asked to make a pair of shoes strong enough to last one year, I saw the angel of death was standing behind him and was going to take his life before sunset. I found the answer to the second question: What do men not know? Men do not know what they want. Men do not know how much longer they live. Mothers do not know what their children really need. The wealthy man did not know if he was going to wear leather shoes for the living or slippers for the dead.

I continued to wait for God's revelation to His third question. Today He gave it to me. What do men live on? They live on God's love! I live, not because of my own strength, but because a passer-by and his wife have a loving heart. The twin orphans live, not because of their mother's arrangement, but because of their neighbor's loving heart. Men do not live for themselves. God does not want them to live individually and selfishly, and so He does not want them to know what they exactly need. He implants love in men's heart and makes them see everybody else's need. Men live on love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God is in him too because God is love!

The angel sang loudly praising the Lord while he grew a pair of wings and flew to heavenбK

Sister Yue listened quietly. Gradually she stopped weeping.

Since then, Sister Yue no longer looked distressed. She told her family that she finally managed to feel good about her two children. She said she could now leave her children in the hands of the Lord, the hands that were far more loving, far warmer and far more reliable than human cares. What is faith? Is it to believe in some kind of invisible and intangible emptiness? Certainly not. That would be superstition, not faith. Faith is to truly believe in God's love! The love of a mother is perhaps the greatest love on earth, and the most selfless love, too. But even the love of a mother is limited, transient and relative, and it is subject to contamination of selfishness and sin.

What do men live on? The answer to this question shocked me as much as it did Sister Yue. It made me wonder if I was really giving Sister Yue any advice to see the other world she was about to reach from the point of view of this world she was about to depart? Or was it more like it that Sister Yue, with her final portion of life, was helping me examine this world once again from the point of view of the other world? The death of Sister Yue silently reminds me that death can become so close and so unexpected. What I need to face is death that I eventually have to encounter. Am I prepared? What will I do to prepare for it? It never dawns on me that life and death are so closely related. As long as men live, they face death. Death exists because of life. Death is by nature a part of life, and an integral part of life too. God reveals to us that our life depend on our love to each other and not on our individual selves, and we live for each other too. What about death? Do we die for each other too? Can our death bring to others new life, new hope and new faith? Or will it only cause sadness for family relatives or friends?

The Gift Of Life

During the first Christmas season following Sister Yue's death, the snow-covered white world reminds me of death, which is closely related to Christmas anyway. The color of white seems to be the color of funeral. In Chinese tradition, the color of funeral is white rather than black. In Western culture, the color of white represents cleanness and holiness as in a bridal dress. The two seemingly opposite representations harmoniously become one in the Lord Jesus Christ. The thought of Jesus' birth creates a bit of awe mixed with a bit sadness: Indeed He came to this world because of death, but ironically we celebrate His birth with joy. On the other hand, is there anyone who is not destined to stride toward death from the moment he is born? As God becoming flesh, Jesus shares men's common fate as a human with His own death.

Since the very beginning, men's life itself has been a gift from God. It is not a piece of private property of the living. The most tangible of human existence does not belong to men themselves. Life as the most fundamental of human beings does not belong to them. Death cannot take away what has always belonged to God.

Every Christian is aware that resurrection is not a dumb person's dream. Once you encounter God, you will know resurrection is reality on which your faith is based. More importantly, resurrection is not necessarily something in the distant future. Our spiritual resurrection has already begun in our present life. Physical resurrection and spiritual resurrection differ only in stages. Our life keeps growing. Everything that's happening in our life, including hardship and the inevitable death, is an opportunity through which we can learn and grow. Marx was right in saying that Christianity is to destroy everything selfish and worldly, that it is not to bring to men happiness that belongs to the future so that men can escape or abandon today's responsibilities and to dream about heaven in the future. Heaven is right here among us and it has already begun.

The birth of life is full of bitterness. Jesus compared his death to child bearing: "A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world." (Jn. 16:21) Can we come to prepare for our death with joy and hope much like our parents prepared for our birth?

Recently I mourned for Lu Yun's death of heart attack when I read one of his new books titled Our Greatest Gift: A Meditation on Death and Caring. In the book there is a very interesting parable. A pair of twins were growing up in the mother's womb. The daughter said to the son: "I believe we are going to have life when we get out of here." The son disagreed: "Wrong. All are included here. This is a dark and comfortable place. It is sufficient to live on our own umbilical cord." The daughter said: "I believe there are brighter places out there and more physical existence. There we are going to have freedom and can stretch our arms and legs." But she couldn't prove herself and couldn't convince her brother either. Then she said again: "I believe we are going to have a mother that loves us." But he became angry: "We have never had a mother! What makes you unsatisfied so that you dream about life, light, freedom and mother? None of these things exist!" She had to keep silent for a long time till they both grew bigger and bigger. "Brother, haven't you seen lately that something has been pressing us? We are less comfortable now. Sometimes it is even painful." He thought about it and said: "You are right!" "I think this is to tell us to get ready to move to another place, a better place where we are going to meet our mother. How exciting!" The brother decided not to listen to her nonsense anymore. As far as the brother was concerned, despite the increasing discomfort and inconvenience, he was after all in a familiar and secure world. To depart from it and to move to a completely alienating and incomprehensible new place was not only unexciting but terribly painful and deadly. He was afraid to even mention it. He wished his sister would not mess up with his current peace of mind. Lu Yun wrote: "We can certainly think of all we have in this world as all that has ever existed. We can think of death as nonsense and avoid talking about it. Or we can have a different mindset and believe that death is painful all right, but it is also a path full of blessing, a path that leads us home to meet our Lord."

Indeed, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" (I Co. 15:55) In the Lord Jesus Christ, death is merely the pain of birth, the birth of a new life.

*****

Abridged from page 34-37, June 1997 issue of Overseas Campus Magazine.

The author came from Shanghai, had earned a Ph.D. in material engineering in America, and is now a full-time missionary.