(Note: this old newsletter article was written in 2016, but I don’t think I ever published it. PrBW)
Euthanasia is a Greek word; eu means “good” or “blessed”, and thanatos means “death.” The current conversation about Euthanasia invites Christians to consider what a “good death” really is.
This conversation is especially appropriate in the context of the recent election. Colorado voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 106, the “Colorado End-of-Life Options Act.” According to the Denver Post, “The proposition would change Colorado statutes to allow any “mentally-capable” adult aged 18+ with a diagnosed terminal illness that leaves them six months or less to live to receive a prescription from a licensed physician that can be taken voluntarily to end their life.” (http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/colorado-voters-approve-proposition-106-right-to-die-ballot-measure)
Here’s an example of the happiness expressed when the ballot measure passed:
In an article on the “Yes on Colorado End-of-Life Options” website Melissa Brenkert writes about the “cruelty” of a law which outlaws murder and suicide. This is a summary of the argument:
Two years ago, I learned more about life, death, pain, suffering, medicine, cancer, bravery and love than I had ever learned before. Two years ago today, I started to see why it is fundamentally cruel to deny a person the right to take control of his or her own medical decisions. How deplorable it is that we, as a society, try first to limit what medications should be available and then dictate when they should be available and in what quantities. Should decisions that carry such personal consequences be made by the government? Why should we, as thoughtful citizens, be denied that control and therefore be sentenced to endure the unbearable physical side effects of our illness regardless of our own personal desires?
(http://coendoflifeoptions.org/memory-leslie-ann-hollis-december-15-1978-november-2-2014/)
In this paragraph we see the two pillars upon which stand all Euthanasia and “Right-to-Die” laws: autonomy and comfort. The “good death” is understood to be the death where we have control, and where there is no suffering. Hear the argument again: “Why should we, as thoughtful citizens, be denied that control and therefore be sentenced to endure the unbearable physical side effects of our illness regardless of our own personal desires?” We are to understand that if we do not have control, we are not dying a good death. If we are suffering, we are not dying a good death.
Consider this formulation put forth by the Japan Euthanasia Society in 1976 (called the “Tokyo Declaration”):
In recent years, we have become aware of the increasing concern to the individual over his right to die with dignity, or euthanasia. We believe in the rights and freedom of all men. This brings us to affirm this right to die with dignity, which means in peace and without suffering. Death is unavoidable. But we believe that the manner (and time) of dying should be left to the decision of the individual, assuming such demands do not result in harm to society other than the sadness associated with death.
(http://www.worldrtd.net/history-world-federation-right-die-societies)
We see again the twin virtues of autonomy (“the decision of the individual”) and comfort (“in peace and without suffering”). This is a peculiar pagan definition of a good death, not a Christian one. The pagan and the Christian have different understandings of “good.”
For our pagan neighbors, having control of life, being free to do and choose what I want is “good.” Being out of control, or being bound to another is “evil.” (We hear this sentiment when the argument for abortion is called “pro-choice.”) Autonomy, being a law unto myself, and the right of self-determination is considered good and right.
Further, pleasure has become an idol, and the pursuit of pleasure has been exalted over most other things. Pleasure is “good,” and pain and suffering are “evil.” (We can identify this as a particular form of pagan thought called “Hedonism,” the exaltation of pleasure as a great good and a goal to be pursued.) For the pagan it is better to be dead than to be alive and suffering. (We recognize this hedonism in the argument for homosexual marriage, that it is a moral evil to deny someone something that gives them pleasure and fulfillment.) “Comfort” understood as a lack of pain and suffering is taken as a human right, a right to be protected by the law.
Putting together the two pagan virtues autonomy and comfort results in a pagan law like Proposition 106, the legalization of physician-assisted suicide, and the exaltation of the “dignified death” where the dying person is in control and without suffering.
The Christian has a completely different understanding of the “good death.”
First, regarding suffering, we are never promised a life without suffering. In fact, the Lord Jesus promises trouble. “In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Rather than understanding suffering as the greatest evil, the Christian is able to look on the suffering in this life as a blessing from God. “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5, see also 2 Corinthians 12:10, Colossians 1:24, James 1:2-3, Philippians 1:29, 1 Peter 1:7, 4:13-16). In his first epistle Peter takes up the topic of suffering four times, and each time he notes simply, “Christ suffered” (see 1 Peter 2:21, 3:18, 4:1, 4:13). Peter’s thinking is simple: if God suffered then suffering, at least, is not an evil. Suffering is not a sin. In fact, it is through suffering that our salvation is accomplished. Our suffering comes from the hand of the God who loved us and gave His Son for us. While the pagan understands suffering as an indication of God’s hate or neglect, the Christian understands their suffering as a gift from God’s love. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6).
St. Augustine takes up the topic of Christian suffering in The City of God.
Wherefore, though good and bad men suffer alike, we must not suppose that there is no difference between the men themselves, because there is no difference in what they both suffer. For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.
The City of God, St Augustine (I.8)
The Christian, then, knowing the love of God in Christ, receives suffering as a gift from God. The Christian is ready and able to endure suffering, knowing that it is not an evil, but, by faith, a gift of God. This does not mean that we pursue pain or chase after suffering. They will find us. But it does mean that the Christian is not looking to end suffering and pain at all costs.
Nor does the Christian consider autonomy a virtue. Our lives do not belong to us. We are bound to God and to one another. We are not free to sin. We are not authorized to pursue our own desires. The Lord, who gives us our lives, binds our lives with His law to our neighbor. “You shall not kill” binds us to a life of loving and serving our neighbor. It binds us to honoring, protecting, and serving life, our neighbor’s life and our own. We are not free to kill. We are not free to steal. We are not free to lie and cheat and pursue sexual pleasure outsides the bonds of marriage. Our freedom and our choices are limited by the law, God’s law and man’s laws. This is especially true of the Christian who is placed in the world to love and serve their neighbor with a selfless love. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8).
The Christian, then, would not consider a lack of suffering the same as good. The death of Jesus was full of suffering and sorrow, but it was surely a “good death.” So, too, the Christian would not consider a death where man’s will is active to be a good death. The Christian, in fact, understands that a death accomplished according to man’s will is murder, an evil death. What, then, do we consider a “good death”?
We learn about this from the Lord’s Prayer.
First, we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” We pray that in life and in death God’s will, not ours, would be done. The good death is not according to our will, but to God’s. Our lives are in His hands, not in our own. So with our dying breath we, like Jesus, commend ourselves to God. “Into Your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46, Psalm 31:5).
Second, we pray, “Deliver us from evil.” What does this mean? “We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven” (Small Catechism, Lord’s Prayer).
I am often asked, “Pastor, it is okay to pray that I would die?” I answer, “This is what you pray for every time you pray the Lord’s Prayer.” It is death that the Lord Jesus uses to “deliver us from evil,” the evil of this world, the devil, and even the evil of our sinful flesh. In the seventh petition we are asking the Lord for a blessed death, that is, a death that delivers us from evil, and not to evil. We know that death is not the end, but that after death is a judgment, and an eternal placement in either bliss or torment. A blessed death is a death that delivers us to the blessings of eternal life, the joys of the face of Jesus, and not the eternal torments of hell. This means that a blessed death is a Christian death, a death of one who trusts in Christ, the death of the baptized. A good death is the death of the believer in Jesus.
Sometimes death comes slowly, and the Lord gives the gift of a “death bed.” When this happens family, friends, and fellow Christians do everything they can to bring comfort to the dying. We read the Scriptures and sing hymns to the dying, and to surround them with our prayers and blessing and the spiritual comfort of the Gospel. Comfort might also mean medicine that alleviates pain, but we are careful that the medicine doesn’t take away our capacity to pray and rejoice in the Lord’s Word. This is our true comfort in death, hearing the Gospel; knowing that our sins are forgiven; rejoicing in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sure hope that it brings to us.
Sometimes death comes suddenly, sometimes violently. No one is there to read the Bible or pray with us. This is not an evil death. No matter how death comes, when it comes to a Christian it comes as a gift from God who does all things well. Our death might come sooner or later than we like. Our deaths might be full of agony and suffering and torment. They might be sudden and tragic. Because of the death and resurrection, if we are Christian, we die a good death. The blood of Christ makes death “good.” “To live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). No law can give us euthanasia, but the Gospel can. The Gospel does.
“Jesus lives! and now is death
But the gate of life immortal;|
This shall calm my trembling breath
When I pass its gloomy portal.
Faith shall cry, as fails each sense,
Jesus is my confidence!
Or, as King David teaches us to sing:
“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15).
