How Do I Care for Those Who Are Dying?

“The veil between this life and the next is very thin when you’re in the presence of dying person.”

The quote is not mine and I don’t know its origin, but these words have often entered my mind when visiting with someone whose earthly journey is close to completion.

Walking Alongside Those Facing Death

I remember the elderly woman. She had lived what her family called a full and faithful life. Congestive heart failure sapped her strength and took her breath. At a visit that I knew would likely be my last, I stood at the foot of her bed reading Psalm 46. Son and daughter were at her side holding each hand, spouses and grandchildren filled the room.

I finished with the closing words of the psalm, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.”

A few seconds of silence passed in that holy moment and then the son put his ear to his mother’s face, listening for breath. He looked at me, eyebrows high and eyes wide, and he said in an awe-filled whisper, “I think she’s gone.”

I remember the baby. Even before her birth, a congenital heart defect threatened her life. Defying medicine’s statistical odds, she was born and day by day, month by month, had crossed every hurdle that was put in front of her.

Then I got the phone call. I rushed to the hospital’s emergency room. EMT’s, nurses, and doctors were taking turns with chest compressions on this tiny little body. Parents and grandparents hovering close, weeping, pleading with the staff, pleading with their little girl, pleading with God to make that little, broken heart beat again.

I remember the biker. I met him in the waiting room outside the ICU. I was the on-call chaplain that day. For them, it was a Sunday afternoon ride along the lakeshore that ended with skidding tires and the scrape of metal on concrete. The biker and his wife, his passenger, were thrown from the motorcycle.

He was badly bruised with road rash and some cracked ribs. She received a traumatic brain injury. Only a ventilator was keeping her breathing. He asked me what to do. How do you answer a question like that? I asked him to share what the doctors had told him. I asked him to tell me what he thought of that news. Then, I asked him to tell me about his wife.

Over the next hour or so he shared stories with me. He would smile and chuckle sharing memories, many of them including rides they had taken together, but then he would pause and look to her bed when the present reality confronted him. I held his hand and hers after the release papers were signed. The nurse turned off all the equipment, and the room fell silent.

Difficult as they were, I consider these times as a privilege. I entered into sacred space, clinging in faith to God who gives life, and in time, receives back the life of those whom He has created in His own image. I trust, in faith, that this is not how the story ends.

The Ministry of Presence

In these moments, my theology guides me. I affirm that all human beings have been created in the image of God and that life is sacred from conception to the final beat of the heart. I trust in God’s sovereign power and goodness to hold these lives, and my duty to recognize and honor life. I affirm the dignity of all human beings—from the strong and healthy to those diminished by age, wracked by disease, damaged and scarred by injury, or born with impairments either physical or cognitive.

While there may be similarities, the dying and death of each person is unique. There is no prescribed order or pattern. I knew that my role as a pastor was not to whitewash grief with a platitude or in a moment of anger, try to quickly re-direct and teach with a verse from Scripture or a point of doctrine. There were times to present the Gospel to eager ears. There were other times where I assured believers of God’s faithful promises in Jesus Christ. Often, the most important work was a ministry of presence, letting people know that they were not alone.

I realized that my urge to speak to tragedy or suffering was often more motivated by my temptation to impose on others my own needs and fears surrounding mortality rather than listening and walking beside those who were suffering and grieving. In time, however, I learned that I could be a strong witness for Jesus and the hope of the Gospel without feeling the obligation of having all the answers.

Resting in God’s Timing

With this understanding, I also recognize how crucial it is to trust in God’s timing, rather than our own. The world is not as it should be, as sin and death are still a part of the experience of our living. While science and medicine have made incredible advances over the years, our bodies still age, diseases still invade, and injuries damage our bodies.

We do not measure the value of life by its utility, but acknowledge that life is a gift of God, and is to be honored as such. Paraphrasing the Heidelberg Catechism, “We are not our own. We belong body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.” These are words of comfort, but also a reminder for us to not supersede God’s will and timing.

We also recognize that sometimes there is suffering with dying. Pain can be palliated, but it is not our role to assist in actively ending someone’s life. Suicide in any form, by one’s own hand or using medical assistance to prematurely cause death crosses ethical lines and conflicts with Christian theology.

Additionally, we should protect and preserve life, but not unnecessarily prolong life. There were times in my work as a pastor to let people know, whether the dying person or their family, that it was ok to let go. Ceasing treatment, Do Not Resuscitate protocols, or entering hospice was not an admission of failure. This life was ending, and God would provide for them in that translation from death to eternal life. We belong to our faithful Savior. That, too, is true comfort.

The Promise of Resurrection

All of us will die, unless Christ comes first. Dying comes before renewal. Death comes before resurrection. Through the saving work of Jesus Christ, I know that there is the promise that death itself will die and all will be made new.

At funerals where I have officiated, I have almost always closed with Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. They summarize my hope and the hope that I try to provide those who are confronted with dying and death.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

I try to read this passage with a steady crescendo, a building song of triumph that finishes with an affirmation of the victory of Jesus—a victory in which God is glorified, and we are also the beneficiaries.

The veil is thin. In our waiting, may we hang on to the hope of the day when that veil is torn in two forever. It is a privilege to enter the sacred spaces of those who are dying. God give us courage to sit in that space, perhaps as an escort to those moving from what is seen and temporary to the unseen and eternal.