Peace be with you,
The seasons of October and November are seasons where we as a culture spend more time than usual thinking about death. The leaves on the trees, as beautiful as they are in their rainbow raiment, are dying. Lawns and front porches are decorated with skulls and skeletons and tombstones in celebration of Halloween, a holiday where we make light of all the things that scare us – monsters and black magic and, perhaps most of all, death itself. Halloween – All Hallows Eve – is of course the day before All Saints Day, which is then followed by All Souls Day, a trilogy of holidays commemorating the dead. The annual dying of the earth around us during Autumn gives us a perfect opportunity to reflect on these things.
I want to talk about death, and particularly about how we as Christians understand it. Of course, there is no one singular Christian perspective on death, as there is no single Christian consensus on almost any given matter. There are some Christians, particularly the loudest ones, who believe death leads the majority of people everywhere and of all time into an eternity of suffering in hell, while only a select few will experience eternal happiness in heaven instead. Others see death as an impenetrable curtain of mystery, hoping that they’ve lived their lives worthily enough to go to the good place after they walk through it. Still other Christians maintain that on the other side of that curtain there is only love and light, such that we no one needs to fear its approach.
What does the Bible say about such things, you may be asking. Surely we could clear up this ambiguity by consulting sacred Scripture. But if Scripture provided clear and consistent teaching on death and afterlife, we wouldn’t have 2000 years of Christians debating what it means. This is because the Bible doesn’t contain one, single, unified, internally consistent view of death and afterlife. It gives us multiple views in tension with each other. The ancient authors of Scripture wrestled with this mystery as much as we do, and God seems to see it fit that this is so.
This is not the space for an extended breakdown of the Bible’s many teachings on death. For that, you’ll have to come to Bible study! Rather, I bring all of this up because I want to talk about popular attitudes surrounding death in our present culture. There are two very poignant examples that have been in the news lately, and you’ve probably heard about them.
On September 30th, a woman on death row was executed. Well, sort of. The execution by lethal injection was carried out, but Christa Pike survived it. Doctors familiar with Pike’s medical condition warned that her body would not react to the lethal injection drugs the way people normally do, leading to this very possibility. The result was an enormous amount of suffering for Pike, and potential lifelong complications. This incident has sparked heated debate about the death penalty and the moral questions surrounding it. Some argue that the state should go ahead and execute her again, using a different method such as hanging or electric chair. Pike is a convicted murderer, after all, and her murder case was particularly brutal. However, others argue that, because the execution was carried out, technically she has served her sentence, even though she survived. And of course there are still others oppose the death penalty entirely for moral, religious, or practical reasons.
Not long after this debacle became headline news, US “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced that the military execution of Nidal Hasan will be publicly broadcasted. Hasan was an Army psychiatrist who murdered 13 fellow servicemen in his infamous 2009 shooting of Fort Hood. This case adds a whole new layer of complexity, such that even many of those who support the death penalty are uncomfortable with the prospect of a public execution. The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States was conducted in 1936 – though extra-judicial public lynchings of black Americans continued to take place all across this country for many years after that. And around the world today, the list of state governments that carry out public executions has grown surprisingly short. If Secretary Hegseth goes through with his plan, the United States will join a club who’s other members include Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Hamas-controlled Palestine, and North Korea. Not exactly a who’s-who of morally superior nations.
The prospect of a US sanctioned public execution moved Pope Leo XIV, the highest human authority for practicing Roman Catholics, to declare that the death penalty is “inadmissible.” Execution, he has argued, violates the fundamental human dignity that every person created in the image of God inherently bears. Execution robs the condemned of opportunities to reach repentance and redemption, while serving nothing to society except to satisfy our thirst for violence. Justice and the protection of society from dangerous individuals can be accomplished through modern technologies of the incarceration system, making execution no longer necessary for public safety. And Pope Leo isn’t the first Pope to argue along these lines. The late Pope Francis likewise opposed the use of the death penalty.
You may again be wondering what the Bible has to say about all of this. We’re Lutherans, after all, and while we may have varying degrees of respect for the Pope, we are not doctrinally obligated to agree with him. Again, as with anything else, this is a complicated question. Or rather, it’s a simple question with a complicated answer. Many will point out that the Laws of Moses prescribe the death penalty for murder. That seems like an open and shut case, no? However, I would point out that the Law demands the death penalty for many things we would never consider using it for today, including things you probably do on a regular basis. Working on the sabbath (even just picking up sticks!), for example. I would also point out that the first murder in the Biblical story, Cain murdering his brother Abel, was met by God not with death but with mercy.
And for us Christians, the New Testament relativizes the Old Testament Law. Saint Paul speaks of the Law as a task master or disciplinarian to restrain evil until the Spirit of Christ would come. Jesus frequently challenges strict application of the Law: “the sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the sabbath”; “you have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye’ but I say to you… turn the other cheek”; and “Moses gave you this law because of the hardness of your hearts.” Jesus consistently calls the people to follow the Spirit of the Law, not necessarily the letter of the Law. Sometimes this relaxes the Law’s burdens; other times it intensifies them: “you have heard it said do not commit murder, but I tell you if you hate your brother in your heart you are a murderer already.”
As Christians, when we interpret and apply the laws of the Hebrew Scriptures, we do so through the lens of Christ. When we hear Jesus tell us to love our neighbors as ourselves, to love our enemies and pray for those who hurt us, can we really imagine a Jesus who would want his disciples executing people? Can we imagine Jesus, the savior who was publicly executed for the salvation of all humankind, permitting his disciples doing unto others what the Roman and Jewish authorities did to him? I for one have a very hard time imagining that.
And the Laws of Moses themselves give us an important interpretive key to understanding them and applying them to our lives. In Deuteronomy 30:19-20, after setting down His Law for His people, God says “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants shall live. That you may love the LORD your God and that you may obey his voice… for he is your life, the strength of your days.” The Law is given to give the people life. This is why, in Jewish Rabbinic tradition, it is permissible violate just about any law if that violation is necessary to save a life. To weaponize the Laws of Mosses to justify the unnecessary destruction of human life is to read the Law upside-down. It is to miss the point entirely.
These teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, of Christ, and of the traditions of the Church, have led many Christians and others to a position sometimes called “a consistent ethic of life” – an ethic that refuses to destroy life unless absolutely necessary, such as in a moment of self-defense or defending the innocent, and to do all in our power to preserve life and enhance the quality of life for all people. This is exactly what Pope Leo is arguing for in his latest pronouncements. And, if you couldn’t tell by now, I agree with him. And not that I have the authority of a Pope over you, dear reader, but I do hope that you take seriously the question of whether we as a nation want to be the kind of nation that intentionally destroys human life, let alone destroys it publicly. When we pray “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done” we are praying for a new world to be born in and through this world, and that coming world will not include murder or execution or war or any kind of death. Those things will be blown away like chaff separated from wheat. We should take care not to hold onto that which will not persist into God’s Kingdom, lest we be blown away with it.
Christ said he came to give us life, and it give it to us abundantly. Let us also seek to give life abundant to all people, even – or maybe especially – to our enemies. Let us choose life.
Amen.