Life & Death

Exploration of the open sea grew and flourished rapidly after Columbus’s discovery of America in the late fifteenth century. There were so many new regions of the world waiting to be explored and discovered. Innate curiosity along with the opportunity for adventure and economic gain were the principle driving forces behind these bold pioneers of the sea, However, their voyages were taken at great cost and with great risk. Many men died in these quests and explorations.

The adventurers and explorers who had set sail and discovered new routes, returning safely, possessed knowledge that was of great value. These men had learned the secrets of safe passages to new worlds. They kept detailed records in a small book called a “rutter,” which held all the secrets of a particular route to a specific destination and was of great importance to those who might make future voyages.

Obviously, a rutter held such great value because it recounted someone’s long journey, someone who had braved an unknown distance and returned as a witness to others. The rutter offered greater certainty for those who would travel in the future. With rutter in hand a sailor had confidence the same voyage could be retraced with a measure of safety.

The idea of a rutter is important when we consider the journey we will take at death. In one sense, when we depart this life, we too will be traveling to a distant, mysterious place. We too need a rutter, we need a guide who has experienced this journey and returned to share knowledge with us.

Jesus has revealed all that we need to know about death and the afterlife. It is so important to know that God became a man, and, most significantly, suffered a human life and death in its fulness, just as each of us will, and He came back to share with us what to expect and what awaits us.

Imagine the awful inconvenience of being declared dead by the United States Government. Consider this true story:

Susan and Darby Nye of Arlington, Virginia, have been married for 30 years and were looking forward to many more in retirement when Susan started receiving condolences from various federal agencies regarding the death of her husband. But there was one big problem: Darby was alive and well.

It started when Darby’s purchase at a pharmacy was declined. He called to find out why. “Well, they said the Social Security Administration has informed us that you are dead,” he said.

When someone dies, they’re supposed to be put on the Death Master File. The Social Security Administration uses the death data to terminate benefit payments and report deaths to other agencies. But one typo can mistakenly declare someone dead, digging a grave that buries them along with their finances.

Darby’s plight as a categorized deceased person is not singular: it is estimated that every year, some 12,200 U.S. citizens are declared dead by the Social Security Administration due to "keystroke errors." Those affected become like the walking dead, unable to secure a job, make financial transactions, file taxes, or visit the doctor, and for months on end, must endure the nightmare of convincing a large bureaucracy that they haven't yet bit the dust.

Possible Preaching Angle:
Being declared legally dead is a terrible inconvenience for people in our society. But being declared legally dead to sin is a tremendous blessing for believers that promises incredible freedom and hope.

A New York Times article called it “The Most Important Conversation to Have Before You Die.” The article opens by stating:

“Instead of talking about politics around the Thanksgiving table this year, consider a less fraught topic: death. It’s something few of us want to think about, but death is a fact of life that we will all encounter, often first as a caregiver and then, inevitably, when we reach our own.”

According to the article, what is the most important conversation to have before you die? It’s not about your eternal destiny. It’s not about your relationship with God or how to face final judgment. Instead, “discussing what medical care you want to receive at the end of your life is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.” The article notes, “While death can be a scary subject to broach, you may be surprised by how you feel after.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Death, Preparation for – Granted this is an important conversation to have before you die, but Christians believe that there are conversations that are far more important than that topic. How many of us will leave our comfort zone and talk to family members about eternity and what preparation should be made to face God? By approaching these discussions with love, humility, and a genuine concern for their spiritual well-being, we can plant seeds that may lead to life-changing decisions about faith and salvation.

The Super Bowl means fun, friends, beer, and nachos, but heart attacks and other life-threatening cardiac events rise during and after the big game and other major sporting events.

Cardiologists say that stress kicked off by the intensity of nail-biting plays, going deep on wings and chips, or downing epic amounts of alcohol can tax the heart and blood vessels. Dr. James O’Keefe said, “Nobody will be surprised to see people within 24 hours of the game” with cardiovascular emergencies. When you are emotionally invested in a game, your body prepares as if for battle.” Stress hormones flow in a fight-or-flight response, raising blood pressure, making the heart beat faster and making blood more likely to clot.

In a study of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the incidence of cardiac emergencies in Bavaria was 2.66 times higher on days when the German team played, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. These events were highest in the quarterfinal, when Germany beat Argentina in a penalty shootout. Most of the cardiac events occurred in the first two hours after the start of matches, though the numbers were higher for several hours before and after the contests.

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Anxiety; Stress - The Bible warns of the dangers of stress and anxiety, urging believers to trust in God rather than being overwhelmed by worldly concerns (Phil. 4:6-7); 2) Self-control; Stewardship – The Bible teaches us that the Bible is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Overindulgence in unhealthy food, alcohol, and emotional stress during sporting events contradicts this principle (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

In the classic sports film, Heaven Can Wait, actor Warren Beatty plays a man named Joe Pendleton. He was the star quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams and on the verge of leading his team to the Super Bowl when he is struck by a truck while riding his bike. An overzealous angel prematurely removes him from his body, assuming that he was about to die.

When he arrives in heaven, Joe refuses to believe that his time is up. So, he pleads his case that he needs more time on earth. He successfully argues his point with the overzealous angel’s supervisor, but there’s a problem—he can’t go back into his original body because it’s been cremated. So, they have to find another dead body for him to enter. Lo and behold, there’s this multimillionaire who’s just died, murdered by an unfaithful wife.

Joe comes back to life in the multi-millionaire’s body. Then he buys the Rams so that he can become their starting quarterback and lead them to the Super Bowl. The problem is that his wife still wants him dead. Right before the Super Bowl, he’s shot. The Rams are forced to start the backup quarterback, but during the game the backup takes a brutal hit, and what happens? He dies. What happens after that? Right again. The angel’s supervisor sends Joe into the backup quarterback’s body, and he leads the Rams to Super Bowl victory.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what this story has to do with hope of heaven? The message of the movie is that heaven can wait because it can’t possibly be better than getting what we want right now. Attaining a lifelong dream—that’s heaven! But the truth is when I do get what I want, I find out that there’s something else I want that’s even better.

Need some perspective on the brevity of life? Here's a God's-eye view of the earth: Check out this real-time map of births and deaths around the world.

In 1950, there were 2.5 billion humans. As of January 2025, there are nearly 8.1 billion people. In another 30 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, there will be more than 9 billion.

Brad Lyon has a doctoral degree in mathematics and does software development. He wanted to make those numbers visual. So, he and designer Bill Snebold made a hugely popular interactive simulation map of births and deaths in the U.S. alone (as of 2024, population 337 million)—the population of which is on pace to increase 44 percent by 2050.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Birth; Death; Life, short - How many people will die in the next minute? How many will be born? How should these numbers motivate us? Think of each of them as a story, as a unique soul loved infinitely by God. This is an excellent starting point for a sermon on Easter, resurrection, and our mortality. Consider projecting the real-time map as a stunning visual illustration.

A humpback whale briefly swallowed a kayaker off Chilean Patagonia before quickly releasing him unharmed. The incident, caught on camera, quickly went viral. Adrián Simancas was kayaking with his father, Dell, near the San Isidro Lighthouse when a humpback whale surfaced, engulfing Adrián and his yellow kayak for a few seconds before letting him go.

Dell, just yards away, captured the moment on video while encouraging his son to stay calm. “Stay calm, stay calm,” he can be heard saying after his son was released from the whale’s mouth.

“I thought I was dead,” Adrián said. “I thought it had eaten me, that it had swallowed me.”

He described the “terror” of those few seconds and explained that his real fear set in only after resurfacing, fearing that the huge animal would hurt his father or that he would perish in the frigid waters.

Despite the terrifying experience, Dell remained focused, filming, and reassuring his son while grappling with his own worry. After a few seconds in the water, Adrián managed to reach his father’s kayak and was quickly assisted. Despite the scare, both returned to shore uninjured.

Reports of such incidents are rare but not unheard of: In 2021, a Massachusetts lobster diver said a humpback whale had scooped him up and spit him out. But, unlike the Old Testament's Jonah, these men didn't spend three days and nights in the belly of the whale — they didn't even reach it, nor could they have. Experts say it's just not possible for a whale to swallow something as large as a person. While their mouths are massive — as wide as 10 feet — their throats are much smaller, roughly the size of a human fist.

You can watch the short video clip here

Editor’s Note: We know that the Bible does not state that Jonah was swallowed by a “whale” but by a “great fish.” (See Addendum below). Still, the video makes a graphic illustration for the true story of Jonah, regardless of what type of “great fish” swallowed him.

Addendum:

The Bible actually does not teach that Jonah as swallowed by a “whale.” The Bible doesn’t specify what sort of marine animal it was. The Hebrew phrase used in the Old Testament, gadowl dag, literally means “great fish.” The Greek used in the New Testament is këtos, which simply means “sea creature.” There are at least two species of Mediterranean marine life that are able to swallow a man whole. These are the cachalot (also known as the sperm whale) and the white shark. Both creatures are known to prowl the Mediterranean and have been known to sailors since antiquity. Aristotle described both species in his fourth-century-BC Historia Animalium. Jesus spoke of Jonah’s ordeal as a real historical event. He used it as a typological metaphor for His own crucifixion and resurrection (Matt. 12:40-41).

According to a French story, a drowned girl's body was recovered from France's Seine River sometime in the late 1800s. Her body, displayed in a Parisian mortuary in an attempt to identify her, captured the imagination of one of the mortuary's pathologists. So, he had a sculptor take a plaster cast of her face. The beautiful, enigmatic mask—named "L'Inconnue de la Seine" ("The unknown woman of the Seine")—was soon for sale among artists and writers who found it a muse for their work. In fact, no fashionable European living room of the late 1800s was complete without a mask of the Inconnue on the wall.

But her image didn't stop there. And this is where the story gets really interesting: In 1955 Asmund Laerdal saved the life of his drowning young son, grabbing the boy's motionless body from the water just in time and clearing his airways.

Laerdal at that time was a successful Norwegian toy manufacturer, specializing in making children's dolls and model cars from the new generation of soft plastics. When he was approached to make a training aid for the newly-invented technique of CPR, his son's brush with death a few years earlier made him very receptive.

He developed a mannequin which simulates an unconscious patient requiring CPR. Remembering the mask on the wall of his grandparents' house many years earlier, he decided that "The unknown woman of the Seine" would become the face of Resusci Anne. She has a pleasant, attractive face, with the hint of a smile playing on her lips. Her eyes are closed but they look as if they might spring open at any moment.

So, if you're one of the 300 million people who's been trained in CPR, you've almost certainly had your lips pressed to the Inconnue's.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How like God's work of redemption this is: to take the very worst things imaginable—like the horror of death—and make something new that would save countless lives. This is what God did for us on the cross, which we remember each Easter and Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11:26). The difference between the cross and the “unknown lady” is that our Lord was raised triumphantly from the grave and we serve a risen Lord (1 Cor. 15:1-58).

“Most of us will live an amazingly long life and should not worry so much about dying young.” Those are the words of Jonathan Clements, 61, who wrote more than 1,000 personal finance columns for The Wall Street Journal between 1994 and 2015. Plan on living past 90 and save accordingly, he advised, when he wasn’t running marathons or riding bicycles.

In May of 2024, he saw a doctor about some balance issues. Two days later, he received a devastating cancer diagnosis. Scans revealed a golf-ball-size tumor on his lung, and the disease has spread to his brain, his liver and elsewhere. Anything beyond 12 decent months would be a victory. “I’m definitely on the clock here,” he said as we sat at his kitchen table this week.

Clements said, “The No. 1 thing money can do for us is to give us a sense of financial security, and the way it does that is not to spend it and to hang onto it.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Clements did not know that there is only one source of true security, and it is not money. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psa. 46:1).

The longevity business is booming. People are flocking to longevity meetings and taking compounds they hope will extend their lives. Investors are backing scientists researching techniques to reprogram cells to a younger state. Longevity influencers argue that if they can live long enough, scientific breakthroughs will keep them going indefinitely. “We are going to start to understand how to rejuvenate and revitalize ourselves. This is what science does,” said Dr. Peter Diamandis, a 63-year-old entrepreneur who runs longevity trips for investors.

But S. Jay Olshansky, who studies the upper bounds of human longevity at the University of Illinois Chicago, believes people shouldn’t expect to live to 100. He contends most will reach between 65-90. Olshansky said, “It’s basic biology. As people grow older, their cells and tissues accumulate damage. Breakdowns of one kind or another happen more frequently and get increasingly difficult to repair.”

Nobel laureate Venki Ramakrishnan explained the many reasons in his book, Why We Die. He doesn’t believe current interventions will dramatically extend lifespan. Techniques to reverse aging would have to help every system in the body, including the brain, over a long period.

David Crosby, the lead singer for Crosby, Stills and Nash., became one of the most successful rock musicians of all time. But even at nearly 80 years old, Crosby could not stop hitting the road and promoting his music. He was worth over $40 million. And his wife did not want him to travel, but his entire sense of significance was wrapped in his music.

In a film about his life, Crosby expressed a lot of regrets. “People ask me if I got regrets,” he said. “Yeah, I got a huge regret about the time I wasted being smashed. I'm afraid. I'm afraid of dying. And I'm close. And I don't like it. I'd like to have more time—a lot more time.”

Crosby tells his interviewer that music “is the only thing I can contribute, the only thing I got to offer.” Then toward the end of the film, he raises the volume of his voice and the intensity of his delivery with these summarizing words: “The one thing I can do is make music. Myself. So, I'm trying really hard to do that.” His interviewer asks, “To prove yourself?” Crosby responds, “That I'm worth a [expletive].”

Multiple New York Times best-selling author and documentary director Sebastian Junger had a near-death experience in June 2020. This was due to an unexpected abdominal hemorrhage, which he survived thanks to his doctors. This led him to explore the topics of death, near-death, and the afterlife in his 2024 book In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face With the Idea of An Afterlife. After he had escaped death, Junger, a committed atheist, had several deep moments of reflection:

But I didn't die, and it made me wonder what this new part of my life was supposed to be called. The extra years that had been returned to me were too terrifying to be beautiful and too precious to be ordinary. A week after I came home, I found myself sitting at a window looking at a crab apple tree in the backyard. The branches were waving in the wind, and I had the thought that they'd be waving in exactly the same way if I'd died, only I wouldn't be here to see them. The moment would be utterly beyond my reach. Eventually [my wife] Barbara asked if I felt lucky or unlucky to have almost died and I didn't know how to answer. Was I blessed by special knowledge or cursed by it? Would I ever function normally again?

Junger flipflopped daily from wondrous thankfulness to existential dread:

Barbara said she couldn't take much more of me like this and made the excellent point that I had an opportunity to experience the insights of terminal illness without - almost certainly - having to pay the price. What was I learning? What could I come away from this with? My father had continued reading history books until the last weeks of his life. Would I keep practicing music if the news were bad? Reading? Running? What would be the point - but then, what's the point anyway?

Possible Preaching Angle:

Unbelievers are given an opportunity to come to faith by God, but sadly many hedge, delay, and then go back to their old ways, ultimately untouched by their experience.

Some years ago, a frozen pizza company was trying to figure out an advertising campaign to bring attention to their product. They designed a series of humorous commercials where an individual was about to lose his life in some melodramatic fashion—in front of a firing squad, about to walk the plank, or a teenager who’d had a party while his parents were away for the weekend. In each case, they were asked, “What do you want on your tombstone?” to which the answer was “pepperoni and cheese” or some other pizza topping.

It was a risky ad since Americans don't want to hear about death. The company was trying to be funny with their name: Tombstone Pizza Company which originated in the Tombstone Tavern in Medford, Wisconsin. The tavern was across the street from a cemetery.

But seriously, if you requested a stone to be placed over your grave, what would you want on your tombstone?

For example, Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of evangelist Billy Graham, died in 2007 and had this chiseled into her tombstone, "End of Construction -- Thank you for your patience." She didn't pick a favorite Bible verse or a lofty quote from a famous leader. She humbled herself and admitted that her life had been "a work in progress" until she died.

Medical clinics are popping up across the country promising to help clients live longer and better—so long as they can pay. Longevity clinics aim to do everything from preventing chronic disease to healing tennis elbow, all with the goal of optimizing patients’ health for more years. Clients pay as much as $100,000 a year for sometimes-unproven treatments, including biological-age testing, early cancer screenings, stem-cell therapies, and hair rejuvenation.

The centers capitalize on Americans’ obsession with living longer. Many doctors caution that some clinics’ treatments lack robust scientific evidence or introduce health risks. One researcher said, “Anybody who is treating your toenails can say they’re contributing to longevity.”

People who visit these clinics are often wealthy people in their 40s to 60s who are seeing signs of aging. Several providers say they have noticed clientele trending as young as 20-somethings in recent years.

In early January, the Portland area suffered from a winter storm that not only blanketed the area with several layers of snow and ice, but buffeted the area with high winds, resulting in many downed trees and power lines.

Eighteen-year-old Majiah Washington saw a flash from her window in Northeast Portland on Wednesday morning. She opened the blinds to find a collapsed power line on top of a neighbor’s car and a tree branch on the ground. She watched as members of the neighboring family, who appeared to have been getting into their SUV, tried suddenly to escape it. A small fire grew under the car.

A man holding a baby slipped down a driveway on the ice and the man’s foot touched the live wire, Washington said. Twenty-one-year-old Tajaliayh Briggs, then rushed towards the man to get the child, slipping on the ice, and hit the live power line as well.

Washington said she watched a teenager approach the SUV while she called 911. The teen—identified as High School sophomore Ta’Ron Briggs—would also die in the accident.

Majiah Washington saw all this, and disregarding her fear of death, decide to intervene as well. She later said at a press conference, “The baby moved his head ... and that’s how I knew he was still here. I wasn’t thinking ‘Oh, I can be electrocuted.’ I was thinking, ‘I need to grab this baby.’”

Portland Fire & Rescue spokesperson Rick Graves said the agency was thankful for Washington’s brave actions and that she later told officials, “I just did what any sane person would do.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

When we sacrifice our own health and safety to rescue children in danger, we model the love of Jesus for all children.

His pronouncements could hardly sound more drastic. In interviews and public appearances, Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has taken on the question of how to deal with the burdens of Japan’s rapidly aging society.

During an interview in late 2012 he said, “I feel like the only solution is pretty clear. In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonored samurai in the 19th century.

When asked by a school-age boy to elaborate on his mass seppuku theories, Dr. Narita graphically described to a group of assembled students a scene from “Midsommar.” This is a 2019 horror film in which a Swedish cult sends one of its oldest members to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff. Dr. Narita said, “Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer. So, if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.”

At other times, he has broached the topic of euthanasia. He said in one interview, “The possibility of making it mandatory in the future … will come up in discussion.” Dr. Narita, 37, said that his statements had been “taken out of context,” and that he was mainly addressing a growing effort to push the most senior people out of leadership positions in business and politics—to make room for younger generations. Nevertheless, with his comments on euthanasia and social security, which appear clear enough, he has pushed the hottest button in Japan.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This is not a pleasant or positive illustration, but it does highlight the dangers of losing the biblical doctrine of the Imago Dei and the sanctity of every human life.

Conservatives are not alone in opposing the slippery slope that is the growing trend toward advocating for euthanasia. The liberal periodical The Nation, as well as liberal disability advocates, are raising the alarm as well. The reality is that the lives of Americans with disabilities are being devalued:

Disability is something people are taught to hate and fear. And people with disabilities are frequently not given the resources they need to live or the assistance they need to participate fully in society. The poverty rate for disabled people is more than double that of nondisabled people. Further, the unemployment rate for disabled people is more than double that of nondisabled people. The responsibility for care that is shirked by the state frequently falls on families, who are overwhelmed. Instead of being given the resources they need to thrive, many, if not most, people with disabilities are treated like expensive burdens.

Diane Coleman, the president of Not Dead Yet, has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair and a respirator. She says, “It is not the disabilities that ruin lives. It is the system and society that fails to support disabled people. It’s not religious, nor is it pro-life. It’s about going up against a ‘better dead than disabled mindset.’”

Coleman says medical professionals have devalued her life and others with disabilities. One member of her staff was told by his father that it would have been better if he’d died in the accident that made him a quadriplegic. Coleman said, “Those experiences are so well-known in the community.”

23-year-old Jules Good, assistant director of Not Dead Yet, said of her experience, shared by many others: “When I was 18, I got a pretty rough diagnosis. I was super depressed and attempted suicide. And when I went to my first counseling appointment with a new therapist, I explained my whole deal. And she looked me in the eye and said, ‘Yeah, I’d probably kill myself if I were you.’”

A woman in Sunderland, England nearly leapt to her death from in 2018 from Wearmouth Bridge, very well known as a place where people come to end their lives. She now returns to that site regularly to post messages encouraging others who are having a rough time to get help.

Paige Hunter, now 21, says that when she was a teenager suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she found herself standing at the edge of the bridge, thinking about ending it all. That’s when a pair of Good Samaritans approached Hunter, telling her “You are worth so much more than this.”

That not only stopped her from jumping, but changed her life. The next day, Hunter wrote those eight words that were told to her on several pieces of paper and posted them all over the bridge where she had her epiphany. That’s where her campaign, Notes of Hope, began.

Since then, Hunter said she’s left over 1,000 laminated, handwritten messages on the Wearmouth Bridge encouraging others struggling with mental health issues to seek help. She’s received lots of feedback and thinks she’s saved dozens of lives through her efforts—and even improved her own. Hunter said, “It’s definitely therapeutic for me to write these messages.”

25-year-old Callum Doggrell said his life was saved by Hunter’s efforts. “I was going through a really rough patch, and I was at a point in my life where I didn’t want to be here anymore,” he said. That was in early 2019. He thought about his one-year-old son and other loved ones and decided to push past his trouble and carry on. He and Hunter are now in contact.

The dramatic increase in life expectancy confuses people. In the United States at the turn of the twentieth century, the average life span was about 45 years. Now people are expected to live up to 78.5 years. That has spurred an unwarranted optimism, when in truth, the overwhelming majority of the increase is the result of a decrease in infant mortality.

At the turn of the twentieth century, about 10 to 15 percent of all children died before their first birthdays, mostly from infectious diseases. But because of medical advances, today less than one percent of children die before their first birthdays. Thus, Olshansky and Carnes point out in their book The Quest for Immortality, “The rise in the life expectancy has slowed to a crawl.”

Another thing that confuses people is thinking that if we could cure cancer, most of us would live many more years. Not true. In fact, Harvard demographer Nathan Keyfitz calculated that if researchers cured all forms of cancer, people would live only a measly 2.2 years longer before they died of something else! Unless science cures the majority of all diseases, as author Stephen Cave writes, “Then the result is not a utopia of strong-bodied demigods but a plethora of care homes and hospitals filled with the depressed, the diseased and the incontinent old.” In that case “it is not about living longer but dying slower.”

A study explaining why mouse hairs turn gray made global headlines. Not because the little critters are in desperate need of a makeover; but knowing the “why” in mice could lead to a cure for graying locks in humans. Nowadays, everyone seems to be chasing after youth, either to keep it, find it, or just remember it.

People in the ancient world often turned to lotions and potions that promised to give at least the appearance of eternal youth. Roman recipes for banishing wrinkles included ingredients from donkey’s milk, swan’s fat, and bean paste to frankincense and myrrh.

Some ancient elixirs were highly toxic. China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang, who lived in the Third Century B.C., is believed to have died from mercury poisoning after drinking elixirs meant to make him immortal. In 16th-century France, Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henry II, was famous for looking the same age as her lover despite being 20 years older. A study of Diane’s remains found that her hair contained extremely high levels of gold, likely due to daily sips of a youth-potion containing gold chloride, diethyl ether, and mercury. The toxic combination would have destroyed her internal organs.

Many people in our world today are still trying to find ways to look younger forever.