What happens when we die?

Arrival time

During arrival time play selection of contemporary songs relating to death:
• Tears in Heaven – Eric Clapton, in memory of his 4-year old son who died falling off a high-rise building Will I see you there – raising the question of whether we will recognise people in heaven
• Heaven is a half-pipe (OPM) Will heaven be fun?
• Spirit in the sky How do you get to heaven?
• We will be together (Vineyard Surrender CD)
• Knock knock knocking on heaven’s door (Dylan)
• Heaven can wait: Iron maiden The experience of dying (lots of references to near death experiences)
• U2: Walk On

The physical process of death

Today we will be thinking about What happens when you die.
Now if you are a scientist or a doctor or nurse or a coroner then the medical description of death is:

• The heart stops beating.
• For 3 hours or so the corpse remains warm and limp.
• Then the muscles begin to contract and the corpse stiffens – this is rigor mortis.
• Cools to room temperature by 8 hours.
• Remains stiff for 36 hours and then becomes limp again.
• Blood settles, corneas become cloudy, eyeballs sink, skin shrinks.
• Then microbes start to break down the intestines and the rest of the body.

The questions we ask

Medical science gives us all these answers but those aren’t the questions we are asking. What are the sorts of questions we are asking?
• Why do people have to die? Child’s letter to God: “Dear God, Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don’t you just keep the ones you’ve got now?“
• In what way can a person survive death?
• What is the experience of someone when they are dead?
• When you die, do you become a ghost or an angel?
• Will there truly be heaven?
• Do you go straight to heaven?
• Will everyone go to heaven?
• Will my rabbit go to heaven?
• Will we get bored in heaven?
Now this may sound rather serious. But, did you know, daffodils ask some of the same questions, as we shall see now.
Sketch: Life is but a melancholy flower

Star Trek Voyager

Seven of Nine (the pretty one) is a cyborg and has just discovered that she is going to die because something is wrong with her electronics. And she comes to talk to B’Elanna (the ugly Klingon) about her beliefs in what happens after death.
2 mins
Seven of Nine was wondering what would happen to her when she died. And many of us do too.
When you see the pyramids and burial chambers you realise that belief in life after death is as old as man himself.

Statistics: What British people think

You might be interested to see what 1500 British people think, (or thought in 1995).

They could say more than one answer, by the way. Which would you have said?
• Our soul passes to another world (35%)
• Nothing happens, we come to the end of life Bertrand Russell: “When I die, I rot” (34% - 20% of churchgoers)
• Trust in God, all is in God’s hands (22%)
• We come back as something or someone else (12% - one in eight churchgoers)
• Our bodies await resurrection (8% - only about 10% of churchgoers)

The spread of beliefs among churchgoers was astonishing. Surprisingly it is rarely taught in church. So one of the purposes of today is to help you piece together perhaps a bit more clearly the clues the Bible gives about what happens after death.

Bible teaching

The most straightforward answer for everyone here is that when we die we will go to heaven. We can be confident of that because of many promises that Jesus made. I’d like us to look a little more closely at the Bible passages that explain about heaven. Listen to how good it will be.

New heavens and new earth

REV 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. [2] I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. [3] And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. [4] He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

There is something else I wanted you to notice in the first sentence. What did John see? A new heaven and a new earth. So here is the first discovery. We talk generally about heaven, but in fact there is going to be a new heaven and a new earth and that is where we will be. We don’t know a huge amount about what it will be like. But it will be good. Listen to this.

1 Cor 2: 9 "No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him" --
but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

Resurrection

So will we turn into ghosts or angels walking around the new heavens and the new earth? The answer is No to both. Listen to this.
JN 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;

What does resurrection mean? What will happen to the dead people? Many people have problems thinking how God will do it – the problem of decay and recycling of the elements of people’s bodies. Listen to this verse:

Phil 3:20 the Lord Jesus Christ, [21] who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

One of the clues is that our bodies will be transformed.

Have you read the story about the hungry caterpillar?
When he has finished eating and is a big caterpillar, what happens next?
He makes a cocoon/chrysalis and looks like he is dead. But then what happens? He is transformed into a big beautiful butterfly.

I wonder if it will be a bit like that for us when we are transformed at the resurrection. We will certainly have New Bodies
So we’re going to have new bodies and a new heaven and a new earth.
But will everyone go to the new heaven and new earth?
Listen to what the Bible says:

Judgement

Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment (Heb 9:27)

What’s judgement? Jesus told lots of stories to explain what it would be like, and here’s one of them:

MT 25:31 "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. [32] All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. [33] He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.


So there’s going to be some sorting out of things. And it won’t be by St Peter at the pearly gates, it will be by the Lord Jesus. Some will go one way to the new heavens and the new earth, and some will go to the other place.

So how does God decide who goes where? On what basis does he judge? Well that is quite a long talk in itself about the character of God, the things we have done, and the importance of faith. But for now, we can look at it like this.

Romans 6:11 says
“Count yourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus”
Colossians 2:13
You were dead in your sins

The Bible says that we are Alive to God, but there are others who are spiritually dead like we used to be.

It will make a big difference on judgement day.
There are lots of complicated questions about people who have never heard of Jesus, or can’t understand. We have some hints in places like Romans 2, but in the end God is good, generous, just and merciful in his character and we can be sure that he will judge right.

Gehenna, the rubbish dump

Now we have to talk about the other place, which we usually call Hell. There are two different words in the Bible translated Hell and they mean slightly different things.
One is Hades or Sheol, the place of the dead (which we’ll come to in a moment) but the word Jesus used most often was Gehenna. [OHP]
The word means the Valley of Hinnom, a place just outside Jerusalem and it was the city rubbish dump, where the junk was burnt. So our picture for Gehenna-hell is of some rubbish being dumped into the fire.

What is hell like? Over the years there have been four main interpretations within the Christian church, which I might explain to you someday. And there are books to read on the bookstall.

Sheol place of the dead

And finally what happens between when we die, and the resurrection which is when? At the end of time. What happens in between.

It has to be said we only have a few clues in the Bible, about the place of the dead  so I’ve drawn this as a grey area. – the Hebrew word is Sheol. Many Christians believe that we are immediately released in to the dimensions of eternity and experience the resurrection of the body next. And others believe that there is an intermediate place.

So let’s look at some of the clues in the Bible. Here’s what Jesus said to the thief on the cross:
LK 23:43 Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
So it appears that we go straight to paradise the same day, or perhaps that’s how we experience it.
Jesus also told a story about a rich man and a beggar called Lazarus which talks about there being two places within Sheol, the other one being Hades-hell
So that completes the picture, but remember that the last bit is a grey area.

Talking about it

In our groups today we will be exploring various aspects of what happens when we die. It is a difficult subject, and sometimes it stirs up all sorts of unexpected feelings. It’s OK to talk about death, even if it gets a bit messy, and we don’t have all the answers. If this subject has stirred up something in you, find someone to talk to, and pray with before you leave today.

Groupwork

Feedback

Near death experiences

A 1982 Gallup poll suggested that 8million Americans had had such an experience.
The sensations, sights and sounds they report are remarkably consistent with each other, whether Christian, Jew or Indian.
• A feeling of being lifted out of their bodies
• Themselves as dispassionate observers
• Drawn into a tunnel at the end of which is a bright light, often identified as God
• Past life flashes before them
• Reluctant to return
This is subjective evidence.

Most common causes of death worldwide

Statistics: The most common causes of death worldwide

The most common causes of death worldwide, including those associated with old age, are:
• Infectious and parasitic disease (33%)
• Heart disease and strokes (29%)
• Cancer (12%)
• Infant death at birth by several causes (7%)
• Chronic lung disease (6%)
• Accidents, murder or suicide (2%)
• Malnutrition (2%)
(see chart)
Every day 260,000 people die.
Average American child sees 18,000 screen deaths by age 14. Desensitised.