I’ve been thinking about pastors who died on Sunday, and I remember the Pastor of Ft. Calhoun Presbyterian Church 20+ years ago, who was found dead on Sunday morning. I remember my good friend and a local pastor, who also died on Sunday. I looked it up and found at least three stories a year in the past three years where pastors died on Sunday—some before they preached, some between sermons, and some after the services. Pastors experience extra stress on Sundays. We should give our pastors more time off. I don’t think anyone can relate to the stress a pastor feels on Sunday. I preached two different sermons every Sunday at three weekly services for almost 20 years. Looking back at that now, after several years of retirement, I can’t imagine doing that. A news article I read one Monday morning made me think of this. Here is what it said, “Smyrna (MI) Bible Church Senior Pastor Mike Jones died suddenly yesterday from a stroke. He was up early to get ready for church, and sometime later, his wife found him on the floor. They took him to the hospital, but he was declared brain dead by early Sunday afternoon. Mike was 45 years old, had no warning, no medical history, and was taking no medications. He just had a stroke and died. He leaves behind a wife and young family with six kids.” You never know!
I’ve been studying Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 and the passage that struck me again was “there is a time to be born and a time to die.” Everyone should come to terms with that reality. We should live our lives knowing that a time is coming for each of us. Hebrews 9:27 makes it clear that “…it is appointed for man once to die.” Phil Ryken asks, “…Will you be ready when the time comes? Many people aren’t. When the Vicomte de Turenne was mortally wounded at the Battle of Salzbach in 1675, he wistfully said, ‘I did not mean to be killed today.’ By contrast, one sixty-five-year-old widow from Amsterdam was prepared. After the death of her husband in 2005, she carefully planned her own funeral, including the music. One day the next year, when she went to pay her respects to where her husband was buried, she lay down and died right next to the family grave, perhaps of a heart attack. The woman’s name was already inscribed on the headstone, and her will was found inside her handbag.”
I want to be careful how I talk about this subject because only a truly morbid person obsesses over the inevitability of his own death. Reminding people of the inevitability of death is not always the best thing to do. Alexander MacLaren tells of the overzealous Christian barber who wanted to share his faith with his customers. When he met his first customer one morning, he sharpened his straight razor on the leather strap. His initial approach to his customer was, “Are you ready to die?” One can imagine what went through the customer’s mind as he viewed the finely honed razor. On the other hand, only a foolish person refuses to ponder his mortality. One of the most profound truths come from the mouth of William Wallace of Brave heart fame. He said, “no man can really live until he is ready to die.”