Preciousness in Death


Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
(Psa 116:15)


Death is probably the greatest heartfelt loss in one’s lifetime, especially if it is of a very dear one. It bears with it a pain that others would not have the slightest inkling, unless the sympathizer also has undergone such an experience. Recently there was a death of a pastor’s child; such sorrow is probably one of the most difficult griefs to come to terms with. Many questions would be asked by parents, family and church members alike. It will be times like this when our faith in everything Jesus has said and promised will be put to the test. How do we perceive His Word, perhaps the truth of Psalm 91 doesn’t have any bearing anymore?


For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: …..
(Eze 18:32)


There is a death that is precious to the Lord, and there is death that He unwelcomes. A ‘saint’ is one whose life is of highest virtue and benevolence. So the Father esteems the death of one whose life has walked in His ways in unquestionable obedience and know what it means to ‘pour out unto the Lord’ (2 Sam 23:16). A life that lives with unclasps hands that freely receives and freely gives (Matt 10:8). A life poured out bears no self consciousness because he or she only sees a trickle or glassful, but in the hand of the Sovereign God it is a river of living waters (John 7:38) that blesses myriads beyond our human imagination. A life poured out will bear the cross of people's criticism and counted as waste. Jesus poured out His life and the reverberation of salvation’s power stretches from alpha to omega.


Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped, ……. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.
(Job 1:20-22)


Job faced great loss of his children and all that he ever owned, yet not a hint of spiritual pseudo-city in dealing with grief. Expressing the sorrow of loss he did, but conducted himself with such self-control and wisdom. The mantle was rent, the head was shaved in sorrow, yet with patient submission He worshipped the God whom he honored and served. A worship that must have been poured out with such depth that only heaven will respond; even the closest ones to him could never comprehend. Paul could understand sufferings (Col 1:24, 2 Cor 1:6, 7, Rom 8:18), but does the Almighty understand? Yes He does; it was so agonizing that the Father had to turn His face away (Matt 27:46). Jesus sorrow wasn’t in the pain He had to endure but to this brief moment of eternity when oneness with His Father was broken. This is the kind of death that the Father finds such preciousness.


May God in His mercy give us this spiritual stature to grasp this kind of preciousness in death, whether is be for our loved ones or even for ourselves. We may not attain to this as of yet, but God prepares us and gives us His enabling grace when it does come…..after all the centrality of the Christian life is culminated in the Cross (Luke 9:23).


"In his hearing before the Gestapo during his imprisonment, defenseless and powerless as he then was only fortified by the word of God in his heart, he stood erect and unbroken before his tormentors. He refused to recant, and defied the Gestapo machine by openly admitting that, as a Christian, he was an implacable enemy of National Socialism and its totalitarian demands toward the citizen—defied it, although he was continually threatened with torture and with the arrest of his parents, his sisters and his fiancée… In 1944, when friends made an attempt to liberate him and to take him to safety abroad, he decided to remain in prison in order not to endanger others.


"The last service which Dietrich Bonhoeffer held on the day before his death... 'moved all deeply....'


"Bonhoeffer, who was never tried, went steadfastly on his last way to be hanged, and died with admirable calmness and dignity. God heard his prayer and granted him the 'costly grace'—that is, the privilege of taking the cross for others and of affirming his faith by martyrdom."


"Memoir" by G. Leibholz