Bridging the Gap of Fear.

Oh, how I used to dread the down time.

I hated waiting. And it’s no wonder. Waiting breeds apprehension by opening the floodgates of the imagination, and apprehension is a block bully roaming the neighborhood of mental inventions.

So, I adopted a convenient habit of suppressing my ability to think rationally when forced to deal with what I perceived to be confusing information. I followed the path of least resistance.

As a young boy, I’d sometimes lie in bed at night, poring over the scenario of my life’s conclusion.  I knew where I was headed.  I’d been to a funeral or two.  There was no way around what seemed to be an inevitable state of unchanging idleness experienced in a grave of darkness and isolation even though I’d been assured that the restraint of death was only temporary.  Still, the thought was intolerable.

You know, the down time.

As a young adult though, I’d been taught that if I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, there was no cause for concern, for under the guardianship of our Lord’s grace, my “soul” would ascend peaceably into His Presence in heaven if I died.  

The reward of heaven was indeed a popular form of theology in my world.  But something was telling me that I’d have to wait to get there, just like the people who’d already died and were lying in a box underground.  Nevertheless, I conceded to the notion that my unseen soul would never perish when I accepted Christ.

I was out of the woods.

But eventually, the awkward suspicion that I and my soul could somehow separate became utterly unreconcilable, not just to my intuition, but to God’s written word as well.  

[Do I have a soul? see: Everybody’s Got One] 

Because the authors of the Old and New Testaments shared a common perception about the basic human makeup which was clearly inspired by the Author of Life Himself.  For example, the words of the Psalmists confirmed that conscious human thought is an impossibility in death:

“Do not trust in princes,
In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
His spirit [breath] departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.
How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
Whose hope is in the Lord his God…” [Psa. 146:3-5]

“Return, O Lord, rescue my soul [life];
Save me because of Your lovingkindness.
For there is no remembrance of You in death;
In Sheol [the grave] who will give You thanks? ” [Psa. 6:4-5]  [parenthesis mine]

And they often chose to use the word “sleep” as an euphemism for death to describe what they perceived as a condition having similar attributes of normal sleep patterns.  The Biblical texts provide plenty of examples to support this claim.  For instance, Job’s words in  Job 14:12, Bathsheba speaking to David in 1Kg. 1:21, and the Lord’s messenger in Dan. 12:2 are only three of many.

But perhaps what our Lord Jesus said to His disciples before heading to see Martha and Mary and their brother could confirm this:

“Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.”  [Jn. 11:11]

The inference clearly defines the dead as being wholly captive to an expired state of existence.

And it made sense.

When I go to sleep, I’m unconscious—totally oblivious to my surroundings and every aspect of my life.  And unless I dream, I’m not aware of, nor can I fear anything—even time.  And a corpse cannot dream, for the brain cannot function short of being animated by the life-given breath from the Lord.  [see: Gen. 2:7] 

Not only that, in his letter to those who [had] received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, the apostle Peter corroborated the words of Moses in Psa. 90:4, suggesting to the reader that time is a created phenomenon and that, outside of the realm of conscious human cognition, it simply doesn’t exist:

“But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.”  [2Pet. 3:8]

Given these Biblical perspectives of time, when consciousness fades away, time flies indeed.

As I grew in my belief and understanding about being a disciple of Jesus Christ, nothing provided me more encouragement and solace about the future more than coming to terms with the reality of death, because I’d learned that I didn’t need to fear the “down time” anymore.

I had effectively bridged that gap of time in question that had haunted me since I was a child. But I hadn’t just stumbled across a sweeter solution. I began taking the Divinely inspired authors of the Bible at their word.

And when truth is allowed to flourish, confidence abounds.

However, I had embraced a doctrine suggesting that human consciousness is experienced in perpetuity. So I had to ask myself why none of the Biblical authors ever even suggested such a thing, but rather anticipated the future in the hope of new life, in a new age, by way of a raising of the dead, based on the Jewish writings of prophets such as Daniel and Ezekiel.  [see: Dan. 12:2; Ezek. 36:24-27, 37:13-14; 1Cor. 15]  

I also had to question why this future resurrection was such a big deal to them.  [see Acts 2:14-39; 24:14-15]  

And I learned that it was all about a promise given to their ancestor Abraham. 

[Promise? What promise? see: Common Threads are Common, It’s All About Also]

But wouldn’t it have also signified a miraculous emergence of conscious, animated human beings, unshackled from a protracted period of “sleep?” That would be amazing in itself! So, wouldn’t it make sense that the real impact of this very extraordinary event of our Lord’s unscheduled plan to give life back to the dead is wholly irrelevant if some part of me never really dies?

For without the barrier of death, any form of resurrection makes no sense.

And one thing is for sure, every ingredient of the Christian hope is built around this miracle. It depends upon it. 

So, it seems to me that, whatever conviction they hold dear, any fear of actually being separated from the love of God should never consume God’s people:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  [Rom. 8:38-39 the apostle Paul’s words written to the Saints in Rome]

Freedom from the bondage of the fear of death emerges out of various forms of opinion.  

But it probably should make sense as well.