Perhaps it’s my dear wife’s recent brushes with death, or simply that fact that I have surpassed the proverbial ‘threescore and ten’ years, but my thoughts have been turning to the question of mortality.

‘Death’, writes Stephen Travis (I Believe in the Second Coming of Jesus) ‘has become a subject of embarrassment, a matter of whispered uncertainties.’  Death has been removed from our everyday experience, transferred from the home to the hospital, from the neighbourhood to the newspaper.  A person may reach the age of 50 without ever being close to a dying person.  Death is something that happens to other people.

How can we think healthily and biblically about death and what lies beyond?

Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) famously espoused the idea of ‘being-towards-death’.

According to Heidegger, our lives lead inevitably and inexorably towards death, and authentic existence will face up to this fact, and live in the truth of it.  We know that others have died, and that we too must die.  Indeed, Heidegger quoted the German poet von Tepl: “As soon as man comes to life, he is at once old enough to die”

For Paul Tillich, awareness of death prompts us to reflect on our finitude, and to ask questions about God and what might lie beyond death.

Those whose thinking is shaped by the biblical revelation will agree with Heidegger’s insistence that we confront the reality of our mortality.  But they will wish to add to it a commitment to being-towards-life (Ricouer) and, indeed, being-towards-resurrection (Vanhoozer).

Yes, let us face up to the reality of death.  But let us put of trust in Jesus, who has triumphed over death and offers the free gift of life – eternal life.