Freda Harrington, a longtime member of this congregation, spent most of this week in hospital. She was 91 years old and had lived a full life, and sometime in the middle of the week, she realized that her life was slipping away. She told her family what was happening and that she was at peace with it. She spoke of her faith, and her hope of being reunited with her parents and with Bob, her "sweetie" of many decades, who passed away fifteen years ago. She spoke appreciatively of this church and the ways in which it ministered to her. And then, on Friday morning, very gently, very peacefully, she stopped breathing.

I learned of her death when I got to work on Friday morning. I had been riding my bike to work and thinking about these two Bible passages: the story of the death of the first martyr, Stephen, and how he committed his life and his death to Jesus Christ, asking for forgiveness for his killers, even while they killed him; and the words of Jesus: "In my father's house are many rooms. I am going to prepare a place for you." I am grateful that I learned of Freda's death at the same time as I have been meditating on these passages that speak of what it means to die well.

Stephen was stoned to death for his witness to his faith and his courageous condemnation of the wealthy elites who had arranged Jesus' crucifixion. Stoning is a horrifying, violent way to die, but compared to the way many people die, it was mercifully quick. And the story of Stephen's death is clearly told so as to serve as a model for how to die well. First, he offers himself to God with the words: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he prays for forgiveness for those who are killing him: "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."

This passage speaks of the two great needs we have so that we can die well. The first is to die at peace with those around us, to forgive and be forgiven for all the hurts that life brings our way. Perhaps it is for something which happened decades before, but which has never been quite forgotten and laid to rest, a hurt that may not even be remembered by one of the parties but continues to poison the relationship. In order to die well, we must set aside our pride, forgive the hurts that have been done to us and ask forgiveness for the ways in which we have hurt others. There are times however, when no matter how much we may want to heal a relationship, the other person may be unwilling. We may need to find the grace to forgive even the unwillingness to forgive and be forgiven. Reinhold Neibuhr's famous prayer may be helpful as we negotiate the challenges of healing relationships:

God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change,
the courage to change the things we can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

The second thing that we need to do when we are dying is to learn to surrender control of our lives, and trust that God will receive us. Whatever the afterlife is like, it is not in our hands, and the final lesson that we need to learn from life is to trust God as we fall into death. The reading from the gospel according to John includes those familiar words from John's gospel often read at funerals: "In my father's house are many rooms… I will come again, and take you to myself, so that where I am, you may be also." And then in a dialogue with Thomas, who wants to know more about where Jesus is going, and where we are all going, Jesus only says that he is going to be with his father, his Abba, and that will have to be enough.

Death is the ultimate certainty; but it is surrounded by a lot of uncertainty. How will we die? When will we die? Who will be with us? What lies beyond? We live in a culture that is very uncomfortable with uncertainty. Maybe all cultures are, but ours is more than most. Ours is a technological culture, and technology is ultimately about control, control of nature, control of time, and control of our bodies. In the face of what is beyond our control, it is tempting to try to find some means of controlling it. Some try to control death by using medical interventions to postpone it; others try to control death by hurrying it up. This is what someone called the "do-something syndrome," but sometimes it is not appropriate to try to control, sometimes, if there is really nothing to be done, the wisest thing to do is just to do nothing. Learning to relax our control of our lives and face whatever comes with hope can be a profoundly spiritual experience. Some might even say it is the essence of spiritual experience. Perhaps that is the final lesson which life has to teach us, to rest on the everlasting arms and surrender to the eternal.

Dying well. Can there really be such a thing? The quest for the easy death may be the holy grail of our generation. But dying well and dying easily are not necessarily the same thing. Healing our relationships, and surrendering our need for control may be among the hardest things we ever have to do. They may also be the most important.

There is a lot we can do to make the dying more comfortable. Modern approaches to care of the dying are concerned with enabling patients to live to the limit of their physical, mental and spiritual capacity, with control and independence, as far as possible in the place of their choice. Such approaches can make the process of dying considerably easier, but only the spiritual work of forgiving and accepting forgiveness, and offering our lives to God in hope and trust can really allow us to die well.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross called death "the final stage of growth." It is the ultimate mystery of life. It is the final lesson in trust, in hope and in surrender. It is that final and terrifying journey on which we test everything in our lives, and finally discover what is ultimately important. It is a journey that is beyond human wisdom to control, and beyond human power to prevent. How we make that journey and how we accompany people who are making that journey must reflect that mystery and that humility. AMEN.