Precious

I had a physical recently -- routine stuff ... you know -- and they included one of those mental health questionnaires that seem to be perfunctory now. You know. "Do you feel depressed?" "Do you feel too depressed to do anything?" And the last question is always something like, "Do you ever feel like you'd be better off dead?" Answers are along the lines of "Occasionally," "Sometimes," and "Often." To me, that last is a trick question. I mean, if I believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, then how can that be anything less than "Often"? If I believe that when I die I will awake in the eternal presence of my God and Savior, how could that not be "Often"? But I came across this verse in the Psalms and it really struck me odd.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints. (Psa 116:15)

Well ... uh ... thanks, Lord. You really wish me dead? That is precious to You? I mean, with friends like that ... right? But take a look at it.

The verse is trying to convey that there is something that the Lord finds precious. "Oh," you might think, "I want to know what that is! I'd like to give Him what He finds precious!" Okay, what is it? The death of His saints. "Really, Lord?" The verse tells us that He dearly loves (the word conveys "of great value") the death of His people. Of course, if you're tracking here, you know I said something different than the text. It isn't "His people." It is "His saints." The word refers to His "holy ones," His "set-apart ones." It isn't the ones that the Roman Catholic church says lived good enough lives to be prayed to. It is a reference to those people who, according to the New Testament, have their sins forgiven and have new life by the blood of Christ. The elect. The chosen. The sanctified. And I was particularly struck by the possessive pronoun, "His." It isn't "the saints." It is specifically "His saints." We who are saved by faith in Christ are cleaned and belong to Him. As such, He delights to see our deaths.

How can this be? How can the termination of the physical life of people whom God has saved be part of His grand and good plan? The text doesn't tell us. It gives us clues. These are His saints. These are His saints. We know that to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor 5:8), that for God's saints, to live is Christ and to die is gain (Php 1:21). So maybe ... just maybe ... we have this whole "death" thing wrong in our communal gut. Maybe (you know, since God thinks so) the death of His saints is a good thing. Not to suggest that causing it or hastening it is a good thing, but clearly if it is precious in the sight of the Lord, our deep discomfort when God's saints die is misguided. That event is precious to God when He brings it about, and it should be to His followers as well. Perhaps some of our anguish and even outrage over the death of His saints says more about our faulty thinking than His goodness and wisdom.