The Last Enemy

As today is Memorial Day, I was thinking about all of those who died in battle for various causes, some more nobler than others. But for the soldier on the field, or sailor on the ocean, or aviator in the sky, he gave his life regardless. Certainly I have never given my life for anything. Death is a terrible thing. It is the thing that really shows us that something is terribly wrong in this world. The world is off kilter. It's not the way it's supposed to be. But in this awfulness, Christians have hope. Death is not the end.

Yesterday I started reading a book by a 19th century American pastor, B. M. Palmer. He was the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New Orleans. The book, Lessons in Sorrow, is a memoir that recounts the death of Palmer's wife and several children. He knew of death intimately. In this passage, he tries to make sense of it, finding hope in his faith.

Many reasons can be assigned for this dread of death, styled by the Apostle "the last enemy." There is the natural instinct of life, which we share with the beasts of the field; a wholesome protection against the madness of despair which so often rushes its victim on to the guilt of suicide. There is, again, the awfulness of death as the penalty of the broken Law. How unnatural the separation of the soul and body, is shown when the spirit lingers in its tenement of clay and escapes reluctantly at last with the gurgling breath. Is it possible, again, to shake off the ties of life from which the soul has through years been drawing the sweetness of earthly bliss, and not feel the pain? Add to these our ignorance as to the details of a Future State, disabling even the imagination from transporting us to its scenes and pursuits. Finally, bring before the mind the pangs of dissolution, exaggerated often to the senses through the spasms of the body as it stretches to its death stature. Aggregate all these terrors in one single conception, and the wonder will be, not that death is an object of dread, but that Christian hope should be strong enough to overcome it as the last. The history [the passing of Palmer's daughter] just recited is only one of many, going to show that with the most sensitive and shrinking of mortals this fear is quelled at the moment of passing into the presence of our King. It is a grace reserved for this precise moment, guaranteed only then as the experience which is needed; and is possibly connected with the last acts of the Holy Ghost in completing the believer's sanctification. It has been said that the dying never weep; certainly the composure is beyond the power of nature, with which the dying saint yields up all the companionships of life, and sunders the dearest bonds of love. Ah, who can tell what new joys swell the bosom of the Christian the moment his feet touch the stones of the Covenant, as he follows the Ark "in the swelling of Jordan!"

The last sentence is a reference to Joshua 3 as the Israelites are finally allowed to enter the Promised Land after years of wandering in the wilderness. Upon death, all believers will enter the Promised Land, too, but one more glorious and lovely than the earthly one.