The Unmentionable Subject

 

As a young adult I spent a weekend with a friend in country Victoria.  That night we discussed some differences between his Catholic faith and my Protestant faith.  One subject was the very Catholic idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  He claimed that the siblings of Jesus, mentioned in the Bible, were Joseph’s children from a previous marriage.  I suggested this didn’t in any way prove the perpetual virginity of Mary.  The next morning while his Mum was frying eggs and bacon and his father was tucking into his corn-flakes, my friend restarted the discussion of the previous night.  I said to him, “Do you really mean to suggest that Joseph and Mary lived together as red-blooded people but in all those years never had sexual intercourse?”  My friend’s father choked on his corn-flakes.  There was a crash at the stove as his mother dropped the fry-pan.  We quickly changed the subject.  After breakfast my friend took me to task for upsetting his family.  He said, “Do you know, Westendorp, that that was the first time sexual intercourse has ever been mentioned in this house?”

That story illustrates that a previous generation were not very open to speaking about sexuality.  In fact a strange reversal has taken place in our society during my lifetime.  I think it’s fair to say that when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties "sex" was THE unmentionable subject.  Civilized people just didn't talk about that openly.  On the other hand... the subject of "death" was treated with a certain openness.

In contrast sex has today gained for itself a position as a mentionable subject again – and rightly so.  It has even found its way into the educational processes in the form of sex education courses.  The problem is that we have gone too far.  In the realm of sex nothing seems sacred anymore.

But it’s strange that the subject of death has been pushed in the opposite direction.  It has increasingly become the unmentionable subject.  Try raising death as a subject for discussion after dinner.  You do that at the risk of being considered morbid.  Or think of education:  Schools offer sex education courses but not courses on handling death and dying.

Today we tend to speak of death in euphemisms.  It sounds less harsh to say someone has "passed away" rather than that someone died.  And of course we’ve all heard people say:- "When you've got to go, you've got to go...!" – an evasive way of speaking about the inevitability of death.  It’s almost as if there’s a conspiracy to avoid the subject.

That’s strange when we remember that it is the one experience we must all go thru sooner or later.  Why then has it become THE unmentionable subject of our age?

A prime reason is probably - fear... fear of the pain and suffering that often accompany death... fear of leaving loved ones behind.  Above all, the fear of the unknown haunts many.  What will it be like?  What will come afterwards?  So to protect ourselves we close our minds to the awful reality of death.

Please don’t think it’s wrong to fear death.  The Bible does calls it an enemy:- the last enemy!  Furthermore the Bible teaches that death wasn’t meant to be a part of God's good creation.  And remember: Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus as He saw the suffering and grief that accompanied death.

It’s vitally important for us to embrace the truth that Jesus conquered death.  He died - but He also rose again and lives.  Jesus is now Lord of life and death.  So while the Christian must still go through death it is also true that Jesus has defeated it.

A man and his young daughter were in the car when a bee flew in through the open window.  The little girl screamed in fear as the bee buzzed around her head.  The father reached out and deftly caught the bee in his hand but after a while he let it out to fly around once again.  When he did, the lass again cried out in fear.  The father said: Don't be frightened.  And showed her his hand.  In the palm of his hand there was embedded the sting of the bee.  The bee was still there, but the sting had gone.

Those who trust in Jesus need have no fear of death.  Death is still there but Jesus has taken the sting out of it.

John Westendorp
(2MaxFM 6/10/2024)

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