“Those who are wise must finally die, just like the foolish and senseless, leaving all their wealth behind…but their fame will not last. They will die, just like animals.”

Psalm 49:10 & 12

For the last year, people have been doing everything possible to stay alive. Survival has been our number one goal, that is why we are more than willing to shut down businesses, shut down churches, wear silly masks, and shoot a strange serum into our bloodstream that no one has any idea of what it is actually doing to us. All so we will not die an early death. Even though the death rate for an average healthy person under 60 is less than .03%. That means survival is guaranteed for 99.97% of the population, minus some severe headaches and a couple of weeks of extreme exhaustion. I had the Russian flu 20 years ago and it was far worse than not being able to taste my food for a couple of weeks. Mind you, I did miss savoring my morning bacon.

Evolutionary biologists tell us it is hardwired in our bones to want to stay alive. “Survival of the Fittest,” they say. Theology tells us it is fear of God, “Avoidance of the Holy” they say. (Damnation is another antiquated way to say the same thing). Whatever the case, people will do anything and everything to last a few more years on this earth even if it takes double-bolting your doors, quitting all activities, and not hugging or offering last goodbyes to your parents who are actually dying in the hospital, just to avoid that .03% chance.

C. S. Lewis has an amazing quote about death that he gave to soldiers who were preparing to go to the battlefronts of the European theatre in WW2. Many of the students in the audience were teetering on the edge of despair and hopelessness as they contemplated fighting the bloodthirsty Nazis across the English Channel. The title of his message was “De Futilitate.” Here is a short snippet I want you to consider, and instead of the word “war” I am going to insert “Covid 19” instead:

“Covid 19 (War) creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. We are mistaken when we compare Covid 19 (war) with normal life. Life has never been normal.”

Contemplating this quote, a few things stick out to me as I think on this past year.

1. Covid 19 creates no absolutely new situation. In other words, nothing in life has changed other than some people have had to face eternity quicker than they thought they had to. And again, for those who are healthy and under 60, they really have nothing to fear. But those who were a bit older and facing other issues of co-morbidity were already forced to consider what is on the other side of the grave. Is this a cruel way to think or is this just life? Psalm 49:10 says in no uncertain terms, “For all can see wise men die.” We all know this, people die. Covid 19 didn’t alter the reality of certain death, it just aggravated it a bit.
2. Human culture had always had to live under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. There are more important things than just staying alive. Sadly for the church, we mostly have forgotten that there is a greater miracle and answer to prayer than merely keeping a person breathing, it is called resurrection – – raising a dead man to life. As a pastor, I will often visit the terminally ill and my prayer for them over the last few years isn’t to keep them alive, but that God would help them believe so they could somehow attain the resurrection of the dead (Philippians 3:11).
3. If men would have postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. I am afraid Covid 19 has frightened us and weakened our courage. Instead of actually living, we have postponed life just to keep the .03% monster at bay. Meanwhile, marriages are dissolving, people in the church are dividing, politics is ruined, and drugs are carrying people into dark worlds of oblivion. In other words, we are dying in a host of other ways while surviving Covid 19. We have stopped living just so we can stay alive. 

One writer said concerning this quote, “One’s character begins to shrivel up and shrink so as to correspond to the finite and temporal things to which it has become attached.” Have you shriveled up because you have been running from death by hiding away? And what have you been doing in your hiding? Have you watched more television, surfed more silly stories on the internet, kept a daily count of Covid cases, or argued with hate-filled bile with those who were once your friends? That is what is meant by “corresponding to the temporal.”

Edgar Allen Poe wrote a chilling short story called “The Masque of the Red Death” which is about a nobleman named Prospero who invited 1,000 other nobles to a party while they took refuge in his walled fortress to escape the Red Death. Like Covid 19, the Red Death was a plague that was killing people; unlike Covid 19, it was actually deadly. Soon after the party began victims became overcome by “sharp pains” and they began to bleed at their pores, ultimately leading to a sure death within half an hour. As much as Prospero tried to evade the Red Death, it caught up to him and he quickly died as well. The end of the story reads, “And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion overall.”

As Psalm 49:12 says, “fame will not last. All will die, just like animals.” And so we will. But the question is as you face this truth would you rather live while dying or try to stay alive by not living while dying? C. S. Lewis is right, nothing is new.