Quick Note– I can’t stand the aforementioned book. It is nearly impossible for me to get through the [soppiness] of the first 25 pages. This post is not about that book.
Friday, Carsten introduced me to The Descent, a horror flick (which I am not officially recommending). It was a beautifully shot, fascinating discussion of guilt, suffering, the female mind and disgusting caves.
I screamed a lot.
But, in-between the screaming I thought about guilt. As we go through life we collect guilt, we collect the burden of the the Pilgrim. This burden is released in some manner via the sacrifice of Christ– but we still experience guilt. We struggle to live in the reality of our forgiveness.
A character who’s committed unspeakable sins is brutally left to die at the end of the movie (note: this is not really a spoiler). As I watched, I realized the mercy of this death. Even if she walked out of the cave, she would be unable to walk in the light. Death freed her from having to face man, delivering her directly to the judgment of God.
This mercy reminds me of Dante’s drinking from the river Lethe at the top of Purgatory. In this drink he forgets the guilt of his sins– he is given a merciful separation from the unspeakable weight of earthly sins. Living in a fallen world, experiencing separation from God is so tramatic to a being created in His image that we need the severity of death to move on to eternal life. We need the forgetfulness of death.
The curse given to Adam and Eve in the garden is a sort of mercy. Eternal life on this earth, in our present condition would be hellish. This life, with its sin and burdens must end with finality before the next can begins.
Perhaps.
Oh Death, where is thy sting?
Oh Death, where is thy victory?
You argue that death is a mercy, in a way, because it frees us from the torment of impossible guilt. But I wonder if that sort of unbearable torment represents true guilt? It seems to me that real guilt should lead to the desire to make restitution, both to restore the wrong committed to the other, and to restore the damage done to our own souls. Death precludes the possibility of accomplishing this.
There may be times when death is a just punishment. There are certainly times when a relationship should end as a result of sin, thereby precluding the possibility of making real restitution. But that does not cut off all avenues of change. The one whose wronged lover or friend will not longer speak to him may still pray for the lover or friend, and may certainly seek to undo the damage done to himself, and in so doing seek to make things as right as possible. There is little point in playing a martyr, or inflicting punishment on the self. The point is to be motivated by love for the one who has been wronged to pursue goodness.
Consider Angel, climbing to the hilltop to face the morning. He could not deal with the knowledge of the wrongs that he had committed, and so he sought that “severe mercy” of death. He was not trying to deal with his guilt, or to overcome it, but rather to escape it, and to evade it. And Buffy, rightly, called him a “coward.” Death would have freed him from the responsibility to face mankind, but it also would have delivered him from his responsibility to serve mankind, and to make amends. Is that a severe mercy, or is it extreme self-centeredness?
Consider also some of the great heroes of the church. St. Paul murdered Christ’s bride, the Church. King David was a murderer and an adulterer. St. Peter denied Christ thrice. All of the Apostles fled from Christ, but all served gloriously in the Kingdom. For each of these men, the recognition of their sin was a basis for worship, and not for shame. Their exceptionally deep sense of guilt led to an exceptionally deep appreciation for grace, and that grace-driven thinking permeated every aspect of their lives and ministries. The only exception to this is Judas Iscariot, who took his own life in shame. A Severe Mercy? The one who died was the one who never knew mercy, who never sought redemption, who was so overcome by grief (“thanatos,” or Freud’s death-instinct) that he hung himself in shame.
Death is surely merciful to one in a state of Grace, in that it frees us from our sin. Does not Paul cry out to be delivered from his body of death? But I think that the point is to be reunited with God, and freed from the action of ongoing sin in our lives, rather than to be delivered from the (essentially narcissistic?) feelings of shame and self-punishment that we call “guilt.”
I’ve written about this on my own blog, lately. Probably the most relevant post is here: http://tomakeamends.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/idolatry-guilt-vs-self-destruction-33/
I believe Becky is speaking on a sort of metaphysical scale. We cannot make restitution for our truest guilt; not even our death was sufficient. Death merely keeps us from heaping more guilt upon our heads so that we have a lighter load to bear before the judgment seat.
Word picture: I view death as the Cheribum placed at the entrance to Eden; it keeps us from the agony of having to live “as gods” with the knowledge of evil forever.
Not really that either (though your word picture is closer)– I’m playing with the idea that Death itself is part of the redemptive process. We need physical death in order to properly experience the freedom of true forgivenness. Death is a punishment which none of us can escape– a necessary penance bringing with it blessed forgetfulness of the grossness of our sin (through, I agree with Dante that post death we will still have full awareness of grace in relation to our sin).
Not sure if that is helpful– I think I’m trying to capture two distinct ideas, which might be the problem.
becky
Hmm… I guess I’m not sure whether you are speaking of guilt as “the state of being guilty/sinful” or “the experience of feeling guilty.” It is possible to be guilty without feeling guilty, and it is possible to feel guilty without being guilty. They seem to be distinct concepts.
Perhaps death is merciful both in that we are delivered from guilt (the state of sinfulness), and in that our guilt (feeling bad about our sins) ceases to cause shame, and instead causes us to more fully appreciate the grace of God. We don’t “forget” our sin, but it ceases to be a source of torment to us.
Baptism is an interesting image of death. Romans 6 talks about baptism as a sacramental participation in the death (and resurrection), of Christ. Through baptism we “die with Christ” and are raised again. Through His death, our sinful natures pass away; through His resurrection, we are reborn to walk in newness of life. This happens through Christ, and is attained progressively throughout our lives by the work of the Spirit, but isn’t fully realized until our physical death and resurrection. Death is the culmination of a life of sanctification.
I guess that I just want to emphasize the “already” aspect of the “already but not yet” dynamic. We have already been justified, and are being sanctified. This redemptive process will be completed at our death and resurrection, but it also happens throughout our lives. Death is redemptive, but so, in a different way, is life. As such, we ought to embrace life, even as we are prepared to welcome death when its time comes.
Hope this makes some sense…
Well– it seems that in my post I’m thinking about the “not yet” part of our life on this earth. I’m writing about death, and thus focusing on its place in redemption. Yes, of course, I am fully in favor of embracing life as a sanctifying and redemptive process as well.
That’s just not what I’m writing about here …