1 Co 15

There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled, “The Schizoid Man,” that features a brilliant, egotistical scientist, Dr. Ira Graves, who has a terminal illness and believes he’s found a way to cheat death. He’s been working on ways to implant the human consciousness into a computer mind. Besides not wanting to die, part of Graves’ motivation is his helpless longing for his lovely female assistant, Kareen, a woman young enough to be his granddaughter.

Concerned at his failing health, she sends out a distress signal, to which the Enterprise responds. During the course of their visit to the facility, Dr. Graves has a private meeting with Data, the android member of the crew. Data returns to the ship, reporting that Dr. Graves has died. The truth is that Graves transferred himself into Data before his own body ceased functioning. He confesses to Kareen that he now lives within Data’s body, and he wants to build her an android body, so that they can be together without any fear of death.

I won’t bore you with the details of how they’re able to get Graves out of Data. It’s Kareen’s reaction to Graves that I want us to consider. She doesn’t exactly jump for joy as she listens to his plan. Kareen is horrified at the thought of her consciousness—her soul, if you will—being put into the body of an android. The prospect of a seemingly indestructible body and apparent immortality does not appeal to her!

It’s just that prospect, however, that drives many people today. Not that we’re anywhere close to building androids—and certainly nowhere close to putting our souls into them! But there are people who are working in various ways to extend the human lifespan to unprecedented lengths. There are claims that lifetimes of up to 150 years, in the not too distant future, will be attainable.

Such projects have recently come under fire for being questionable, on a variety of grounds.[1] Experiments with stem cells and genetics have shown promise of life extension in animals such as the roundworm, the fruitfly, and the mouse. Human beings are much more complex, however, and such experiments will almost certainly have unforeseen, even catastrophic, consequences. (For those interested in the scientific repercussions, I can give you a brief article that outlines these.)

Plus, there’s a whole host of ethical questions, as well. We live in a world in which access to health care is very unevenly distributed. As lopsided as it is within the borders of the US, it’s even worse on a global scale. The research and the technologies of life extension are incredibly expensive—within reach of only the very wealthy. One writer, considering the vast populations whose basic health needs go unmet, has recently dismissed such expenditures for super long life as “frivolous” in nature.[2]

Then there’s the economic question of people living well past 100. Would the vigor of these people be as great as their age, avoiding super health costs? That would be an accomplishment! With so many retired people (assuming that they are retired), the ratio of working-age people to retired people will become even more severe than it already is. Add to that the increased demand for resources, and we have a recipe for a human population that puts even more strain on the world’s environment.

Cultural and social issues would also come into play with a population of advanced age. Imagine…if it became an ordinary thing for people to live to see their great-great-grandchildren, think of how many more humans there would be on planet Earth. All of these questions, and more, need to be considered as we, so to speak, push back the boundaries of death.

I’m sure there are a variety of motivations in the quest for immortality, be it the Ira Graves example I gave from Star Trek, or the less grandiose examples in today’s scientific research. Surely at the heart of them all is a certain…fear of death, a denial of our human mortality—a wish to avoid the inevitable. Maybe even the legend, the myth, of the vampire is an expression of that.

Speaking of legend and mythology, there’s a writer whose books I would describe in terms like that, though for many people, the late Carlos Castaneda was a spiritual master. His books on the teachings of don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian in Mexico, have inspired many in various new age circles. But for me, the value of his work is found more in its poetic beauty.

Still, I find his comments on death to be noteworthy. Quoting his mentor, don Juan, Castaneda writes, “Death is our eternal companion,” and he even locates it “always to our left, at an arm’s length…How can anyone feel so important when we know that death is stalking us?” He doesn’t offer these words as an occasion for fear and trembling, but for humility and wisdom. “The thing to do when you’re impatient,” he continues, “is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you catch a glimpse of it, or if you just have the feeling that your companion is there watching you.”[3]

We’re getting into a little of that mythological stuff I mentioned, but there is a lesson to be learned, something that Christians should be able to appreciate. As don Juan says, we “need to drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men [and women who] live their lives as if death will never tap them.”[4]

In any event, I imagine there’s something in all of us that apprehends the end of our lives with a sense of dread—to a greater or lesser extent. I used to bug friends with my warped sense of humor by asking them the question, “How does it feel, knowing that some day you’re going to die?” Of course, they would turn it around and say to me, “Well, you’re going to die, too.” My response would be, “Hey! This isn’t about me!” But of course, it was about me, too.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about all this is that death comes to us as individuals. Even if there’s some disaster that takes the lives of many people all at once, there’s a stark solitude in dying—nobody can do it for us.

Gerhard Sauter, a professor at the University of Bonn in Germany, has written about encountering his own death.[5] He speaks of attending a conference a few years ago during which “a retired minister told his colleagues: ‘My task was to proclaim the gospel and to help people dying.’ Of course, he did not mean carrying out euthanasia. [The man’s name apparently was not Jack Kevorkian!] He wanted to help people die an authentic, humane death, to prepare them for their dying as an immensely positive event.…Helping people to die means, at the same time, helping them to live united with Jesus Christ—and it is never too early to begin this pastoral assistance.”[6]

In fact, our friend Gerhard suggests that we are helped by heightening our awareness of the solitude I just mentioned. He supports his point by quoting one of Martin Luther’s best-known sermons (making it gender inclusive): “The summons of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his [or her] own battle with death by himself [or herself], alone. We can shout into another’s ears, but everyone must himself [or herself] be prepared for the time of death, for I will not be with you then, nor you with me. Therefore everyone must himself [or herself] know and be armed with the chief things which concern a Christian.”[7]

One might say, “I still don’t see how this is helpful! And what are these ‘chief things’ that Luther speaks of, ‘which concern a Christian’?” Our epistle reading in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul’s chapter on the resurrection, may provide some assistance. The apostle begins in verse 1 by saying that “I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you.” To what good news is he referring? Paul says, “I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (vv. 3-4).

For a lot of people, this still isn’t considered to be good news! Many feel that Christianity is rather primitive, rather unenlightened, especially because of its inclusion of the cross. The New Testament message of the death of Jesus seems…a throwback to the ancient times of human sacrifice, when people were slaughtered to appease the wrath of savage gods.

This is a misunderstanding. The death of Jesus only magnifies his ability to relate to us. In Christ, God has walked the same dark, lonely, terrifying road that all humans must walk. But this is so much more than a case of misery loves company. Jesus does more than simply identify with us; the remedy is also extended to us.

I understand that some folks trip up over language like death and sin and hell being present in the faith. Still, even if those terms have become unfashionable in some quarters, they express realities that are true for all the people who walk this Earth.

Without Jesus Christ, the solitude that I face at death is indeed bad news. Death becomes a hopeless, merciless annihilation. It’s the end…forever. Sin is the irreparable failure we experience in so many ways. Hell remains as complete, utter, agonizing abandonment. But at the same time, it’s been observed, “Death, sin, and hell are pictures from which God’s word turns us away.”[8]

Our goal is to help each other die well. To die in Christ—isn’t that one of the central meanings of baptism? The apostle Paul asks the Roman church, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Ro 6:3-4).

There’s a line from one of the prayers of thanksgiving at a funeral in our Book of Common Worship that I especially appreciate. It reads: “Especially we thank you for your servant So-and-so, whose baptism is now complete in death.” Whose baptism is now complete in death. Why is that? Well, as we see throughout the scriptures, we must die in order to live, and that process begins on this side of the grave. We can’t live again with Christ until this thing we call “I,” this ego, is out of the way.

A moment ago, I said that our goal is to help each other die well. Well, that begins right now.

I want to finish as I started: with a story from outer space. This time, it’s the movie Solaris. Actually, it’s the remake by director Steven Soderbergh of the Russian film based on the Polish novel of the same name. Starring George Clooney and Natascha McElhone, it’s about a planet, Solaris, that exhibits some level of consciousness. It seems to read the minds of those in orbit around it and re-create individuals who have been lost—those who have died. At least, that’s the case with George Clooney’s character, whose wife appears on the ship a few years after her death.

The story, like the mysterious planet Solaris, poses more questions than answers. But Clooney’s character believes that he’s been given another chance. He says that he isn’t predestined by the past. And neither are we. Because, as the apostle says, Christ died, was buried, and was raised, the opening to new life has been granted to us.

During the movie, several references are made to the first stanza of the Dylan Thomas poem, “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” with its hints of resurrection. It speaks to the reunited husband and wife in Solaris. We’re reminded of Paul in Romans 6, when he says, “being raised from the dead, [Christ] will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him” (v. 9). It is in that spirit that I share with you these lines from the poem:

[1] Audrey R. Chapman, “Ethical Implications of Prolonged Lives,” Theology Today 60:4 (Jan 2004): 479-496.

[2] Chapman, 488.

[3] Carlos Castaneda, Journey to Ixtlan (New York: Pocket Books, 1972), 33-34.

[4] Castaneda, 35.

[5] Gerhard Sauter, “How Do ‘I’ Encounter My Own Death?” Theology Today 60:4 (Jan 2004): 497-507.

[6] Sauter, 500.

[7] Sauter, 501.

[8] Sauter, 506-507.