Life is a Terminal Illness
A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick
This week, all the buzz has been about a 41 year old woman in Florida. Should she live or
should she die? Was it really her wishes to have food and water withheld, or was that the
wishes of her husband who recalls what may have been a casual remark by his wife? And
who should be the one to decide? Doesn't a husband or wife have the final say about such
matters rather than the parents? After all doesn't the Bible say that marriage is when a
man leaves his parents and cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh? And didn't Paul
say, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same
way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife"? (I Corinthians
7:4) But did the husband in this case abdicate his right to control his wife's destiny when,
for all practical purposes, he took to himself another wife and had children by her? And
should the government intervene in order to protect the life of an unconscious person when
her wishes have not been clearly documented?
These are some of the questions that have been swirling around in our heads, and homes,
and in a blithering barrage of media talking heads.
But it gets even more personal when we follow up with the question, what do you want?
Certainly the lawyers must be happy this week as thousands of Americans line up to plunk
down hundreds of dollars to set up what have erroneously been called "living wills" - I
think they should be called "dying wills," expressing how people want to die, not live.
The real question is, do you want to live, or do you want to die? By the way, in the country
of Holland, assisted suicide has become legal, not only when a person is enduring
unbearable physical pain, but also emotional pain. If you get really, really upset, or
someone has said some mean things about you and hurt your feelings really bad, you don't
have to do yourself harm, you can get your doctor to do it for you, after all, he understands
and will administer the drugs that will make it all go away. Thankfully no Dutch Doctor
was available to Job when he suffered so greatly, or Elijah, or Jeremiah when they were
feeling down.
Once Jesus encountered a man who had been ". . . an invalid for thirty-eight years.
When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a
long time," He didn't ask if he wanted help dying, rather He asked, 'Do you want to get
well?'" (John 5:5,6)
Our question today is a little different, "Do you want to live?"
Well, actually, in the end, there is no decision to make, it's already decided, you are going
to die.
In the Old Testament, in the book of Job, we come to understand that this matter of life
and death is not in our own hands, but God's: "If it were his intention and he withdrew his
spirit and breath, all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust."
(Job 34:14,15)
And in the New Testament are the familiar words, "It is appointed unto men once to die
but after this the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)
Consider this scenario: The Doctor slowly walks into the room and seriously says, "I'm
sorry I could not be the bearer of better news, but you deserve to know the truth - you
have a terminal illness." What dreaded words. Perhaps it's an incurable heart disease,
or full blown Diabetes, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS - Lou Gehrig's Disease),
or an inoperable cancer, or a diseased liver, or even Aids. Whatever it's name, the
prognosis is, there is no cure, and you will die.
The fact of the matter is, we all, every one of us, are right now afflicted with a terminal
illness - each one of us is going to die.
"But I'm not over the hill, I haven't yet turned 30." Sorry - you're going to die.
"But I haven't even finished school yet." Sorry - you're going to die.
"I'm in the finest physical condition." Sorry - you're going to die.
"There are still many things I want to do, places to go, people to see." Sorry - you're
going to die.
On January 2, 1822, Rudolf Julius Emmanuel Clausius was born; he was the 14th child of
a minister by the name of Ernst Carl Gottlieb Clausius.
When Rudolf was still a young child his father moved the family from Koslin, a small town
in the northwest corner of Prussia (now Poland) to Uckermunde, 100 miles SW on the coast
of the Baltic Sea - he had accepted the call to be the teacher in a one room school house;
with a dual salary, he felt that he could better provide for his large family. The attitude of
this faithful but strict minister was, "God alone could understand the mysteries of our
creation and mortality, and Man's own stubborn efforts to do so were arrogant and
foredoomed." (Gullen, p.172) However, young Rudolf was not inclined to follow in his
father's footsteps, and early on exhibited curiosity about the natural world around him.
Attending high school in nearby Stettin, Rudolf learned that at the very center of the earth,
there was a "heat engine powerful enough to have sculptured the natural world - the
mountains, the ocean basins, everything. . . . " (175) and he became very fascinated with the
subject of heat, and heat-driven engines such as the steam engine, which while he was still
in high school, had powered the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
At 18, Rudolf enrolled in the University of Berlin, but had to become a part time student
during his senior year due to his mother's death and his commitment to care for his
younger siblings. He finished undergraduate studies in 1844 and began working toward his
doctorate at the University of Halle - commuting 100 miles by horseback!
During this whole time his interest in the conduct of heat continued to grow - especially
how heat was forced to behave in unnatural ways, such as with the Chinese invention called
the refrigerator (making heat flow from inside the cool box to the relative warmth of the
room outside), and the steam engine (converting heat into movement.)
One thing he noticed was that all such machines were inefficient, heat being lost through
friction or lack of sufficient insulation. Up until then it was believed that the universe was
like a perpetual motion machine, but Rudolf began to realize that it was more like a
machine that was actually winding down; much like his own body, the universe was aging.
Over a period of 18 years, Rudolf Clausius began to understand a rather complex
phenomenon he named "entropy." Simply put, "entropy" is the sum total of natural and
unnatural changes in both heat and energy. As soon as we pour out a cup of coffee it begins
to cool and the air around it begins to warm, or when we rub our hands together and the
friction causes them to become warm, that's a natural part of entropy; the unnatural part
of entropy is when heat, or any other form of energy is compelled to work using some sort
of engine.
However, what this brilliant scientist began to realize was that the natural entropy always
out-weighs the unnatural entropy. It's as though the universe were like a gambling casino
where the positive money changes are the casino's winnings, and negative money changes
are the players' losses. The casino always wins, and that's how it stays in business - it wins
at the expense of the players who lose. If there ever would come a day when the players'
money is all used up, the casino would shut down forever.
Ultimately, to say it plainly, the irreversible conduct of heat, always flowing from hot to
cold, will win out, and it will flow no more, and all the engines of the universe, including
those we call the human body, will come to a halt. In the universal sense, and more
immediately in the personal sense, we all will die. That's just the way it is.
Thinking about these things, I remembered that when I was a young boy, my own
father would say something very similar when he commented, "The moment we begin
to live, we begin to die. It's just a matter of when and how."
"Now," you say, "what a depressing thought for a day like today, the celebration of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ. Today is all about life, not death." Actually, if there is to be
any hope for a future life, it must be built on a foundation of truth. The truth is that we are
all going to die. But then what? This is where our Christian faith comes in, our
unshakeable faith that though Jesus died, He rose again. Because Jesus rose from the dead,
because He came out of that tomb, we dare believe that we also can live again.
For just a moment, let's go back and take another look at Hebrews 9:24-28:
"For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one;
he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence. Nor did he enter
heaven to offer himself again and again, the way the high priest enters the Most Holy
Place every year with blood that is not his own. Then Christ would have had to suffer
many times since the creation of the world. But now he has appeared once for all at the
end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as man is destined to
die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the
sins of many people; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring
salvation to those who are waiting for him."
Jesus died, and we will also die. But because His death was not the last chapter, we can
believe that ours won't be either. Something powerful reversed the irreversible that First
Day of the week we call Easter - the same Creator who spoke the worlds and universes into
existence, demonstrated that He was the One who had the power to Re-Create, to bring
Jesus back from the dead. But this resurrection was different than all other
"resuscitations". Although His was truly a resurrection of the body, Jesus was not
resurrected just to go on living in this world. He would have 40 days to come and go, give
full proof of His being alive and give final and lasting instructions to those who would carry
the message of salvation to the world. But then He would return to take His rightful place
with God the Father. Today we honor and worship a living Lord who has paved the way
for us to also live forever in the presence of God.
So I ask the question again, "Do you want to live?" The answer to this question is not
something you can include in the legal documents your family members, doctors and
lawyers will read when you lie on your death bed, and if you wait until you lie there
comatose, it will be too late. It's a question that needs to be answered now, for as Paul says,
"now is the day of salvation" (II Corinthians 6:2), and the author of the book of Hebrews
adds a rhetorical question, "how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?"
(Hebrews 2:3)
"Do you want to live?"
Discussion Questions
Life is a Terminal Illness
1. What are some of the spiritual questions raised by the nationally watched case of the 41
year old woman in Florida whose feeding tube has been removed by order of the courts?
2. What do you think should be the role of the legislative, judicial, and executive branches
of government in cases such as this?
3. What is the basis for saying that suicide, unilateral or doctor assisted, is unacceptable for
the Christian?
4. What are some acceptable ways a Christian can deal with their inner, emotional pain?
5. Why do you think Jesus asked the question, "Do you want to get well?" Shouldn't it be
obvious that everybody would want to get well?
6. What three letter name could we give to the terminal illness that everyone has?
7. One hundred and fifty years ago, Rudolf Clausius, the son of a Polish minister,
concluded a life-long search by declaring the discovery of what he called "entropy."
Though somewhat complicated, what is a simplified conclusion of this discovery?
8. Why is it important to think and talk about death on the day we celebrate the
Resurrection?
9. What is qualitatively different between the resurrection of Jesus and others such as
Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus?
10. Why is the truth about the Resurrection so important?