Traditionally we think of death as a hostile grim reaper, stalking humanity with a scythe. In the minds of most people, pain and suffering are associated with death. We think of death as a dreadful experience and often wonder, “Does it hurt to die?”
The best available evidence is that the actual act of dying is not difficult or painful at all. To the contrary, it is peaceful and pleasant. Dr. William Osier said, “Most human beings not only die like heroes, but in my wide clinical experience, die ideally without pain or fear.” Most doctors would agree with this statement.
D. L. Moody was as mighty an evangelist in the last century as Billy Graham was in this century. In the last moments before he died he said to his sons, “This is no dream, Will. If this is death, it is inexpressibly sweet.” Robert Louis Stevenson, the great writer, said as he neared death, “If this is death, it is easy.”
Eddie Rickenbacker, the American fighter pilot in WWI had many brushes with death. Seven times, he said, his toes were inside the Pearly Gates. He once crashed his plane near Atlanta and for several hours lay pinned by the wreckage in the cold rain. When he was taken to the hospital he was more dead than alive. He held on for three days, encased in plaster from chin to toe. He wrote, “I began to die. I felt the presence of death, and I knew that I was going. You may have heard that dying is unpleasant, but don’t you believe it. Dying is the sweetest, tenderest, most sensuous sensation I have ever experienced. Death comes disguised as a sympathetic friend. All was serene and calm. How wonderful it would be to simply float out of this world. It is easy to die. You have to fight to live.”
Death is not to be feared by Christians.