The End

I'm having an immensely productive afternoon (for a Friday, no less!) listening to Eef Barzelay, formerly of Clem Snide. My friend Paul will tell you that both artists/groups are incredibly depressing, and that you should have at least three means of slitting your wrists handy so that after you bleed out, you can continue the process. The music is that depressing. (I'm sorry; I do know how serious both depression and suicide are, and I don't intend to make light of them. Rhetorical point.)

Oddly, if I'm really in a funk, I put this most depressing of music on, and I am energized in a way that almost nothing else provides.

In Barzelay's "Songs for Batya" he says, "Death is just the moment when the dying ends." In a real sense, this is true. The inexorable process of decay (whether of the telomeres or other systems) meets a point when there is no longer sensation of decay. Then the corpse really begins to decay.

Theologically, however, I believe the dying continues. Death, as in the moment, isn't a digital 1 or 0. After the Fall, death = 1. It's always on. It suffuses the creation, and even for the disembodied spirit resting, waiting in the presence of God, death is a very present reality. The spirit has no body for [not] God's sake!

But if there is any hope whatsoever, it is looking forward to the time when death = 0. The zero point is the resurrection. When all things become new, death is off. It can no longer impact God's good, new creation. We do see that for Jesus, death = 0, and through the Spirit, we can begin to experience a sort of brownout of death. But it's obviously still present, arcing across the circuit gate so 1 > death > 0. But for the fullness of creation to be present, death must die completely.

A better line, and perhaps one to poke into your consciousness as Holy Week approaches, is "Resurrection is the moment when the dying ends!" Thanks be to God.