His eyes followed me as I walked from his bedside towards the door of the hospital ward.
At the exit, I turned and looked back at him one last time. His gaze was still fixed on me. I paused and gave a half wave of farewell, but he was too weak to respond. He passed away shortly afterwards.
Nothing reveals who we are perhaps so much as how we handle the prospect of our own death. In this particular case, the patient was a man of quiet but vibrant godliness who prepared for his own passing with a playlist of contemporary praise and worship songs which he listened to constantly in hospital. He knew what was happening and was ready to meet Christ face to face.
I have seen others, likewise, too. The woman who, surrounded by friends and family, and radiating joyful faith, beamed at me broadly and said, 'Well, I'm ready to go!' – and did so shortly afterwards. The man, who, knowing that his death was imminent, and with loved ones duly in attendance, lingered for several hours longer than medics expected. As time dragged on, we reached the point where he consulted his watch, raised his eyes heavenwards and shrugged with a wry smile as if to say, 'Well Lord, what's the delay, eh?' Later that day, he did depart.
But it is not like that with everyone: the churchgoer many years ago who had shown no signs of personal faith ever – a strong, distinguished figure, who periodically awoke in the hospice shrieking, 'No! No!' It made me wonder what was going on in the spiritual realm.
How will you die? I don't mean 'what will you die of?' but 'in what manner will you pass away?' It's a sobering question, isn't it – and one which the coronavirus brings home with fresh force and urgency.
In a new account published a few days ago of how the great preacher Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones approached his own death, containing previously unseen material, he is quoted as saying: 'Death is the one certainty and yet we don't think about it. We are too busy. We just allow life and circumstances so to occupy us but we don't stop and think... People say about sudden death that it is a wonderful way to go but I have come to the conclusion that that is quite wrong. I think the way we go out of this world is very important. The hope of sudden death is based upon the fear of death. It is the hope of wanting to slip through death rather than to face it.'
Later, he also said: 'Our greatest trouble is that we really don't believe the Bible....exactly what it says – exceeding great and precious promises. We think we know it but we do not really appropriate this and actually believe it is true. Here we have no continuing city. Our light affliction that is but for a moment. We have to take these statements literally. They are facts, they are not merely ideas.'
The Apostle Paul knew the truth of these facts. Imprisoned in a dungeon, in probably appalling conditions, he was able to write: 'For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!' (Philippians 1v21-22)
What about you? What about me? The best time to prepare for our death is now – and indeed every day. Each night when we go to bed, we come closest to what might be called a 'dress rehearsal' for death. As with dying, so with sleep – we may well not consciously know the precise moment that it happens, but simply find ourselves in a fresh reality, with fresh eyes, in the presence of Christ. So with what words, what prayers, what attitudes, what thoughts, might we wish to prepare as we go to sleep every evening?
The great Christian philosopher and writer Dallas Willard passed away in 2013. A friend who was with him, Gary Black, reported that it was like 'a conversation with a person who is about to cross over into a room that you cannot see and where you cannot go'. He said Willard's final words were, 'Thank you – thank you.' As writer John Ortberg makes clear: 'Dallas wasn't talking to Gary.'
What about us? In the great 2019 film version of Pilgrim's Progress, which our family watched this last weekend, death is pictured as an enormous wall of water. There's no way round it, over it or under it: we have to go through it. The words of the famous hymn come to mind as a prayer: 'When I tread the verge of Jordan, Bid my anxious fears subside; Death of death and hell's Destruction, Land me safe on Canaan's side.' Amen.
David Baker is a former daily newspaper journalist now working as an Anglican minister @Baker_David_A
