Godly People Die

Isaiah 57:1-2 The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.

There are moments in life when we question everything we have come to believe. In that moment there seems to be nothing solid to hold onto, nothing to help give us our bearings. Even those closest to you, those who have brought comfort and consolation don’t seem to have the right words to bring you back from the brink of despair.

So what do we do in those moments? And how do we answer the question “why” when no answer can really satisfy? And yet the questions come, unrelentingly and unwelcome.

One of the hardest moments is when a godly person dies seemingly earlier than we expected. They were too young. They had so much life to live. It is so unfair that they died and (fill in the blank) gets to continue to live even though they are so evil. These are tremendously hard questions. They are impossible to answer in the middle of the crisis, but the answers can be grappled with outside the crisis window.

So I want to look at one of those answers provided by the Scriptures. This answer is not THE ANSWER. It is just one of the possible reasons a godly person might have died early.

Our text was written to a people in exile, in a foreign country against their will. And part of what the righteous were to learn is that they die too. Life here is limited, very limited. We will all pass through the valley of the shadow of death. This is a lesson to learn, an important message. It is important because it provides context and meaning to life. It anchors us in reality, rather than allowing us to live in fantasy.

And now for the crux of the message for today. Sometimes the righteous die in order to spare them some future evil. That’s right! Death can be a blessing. I know it is impossible to point at one death and say, “That death happened in order to spare them from evil.” Or “This death doesn’t fit that category.” That call is not up to us. As they say, it is above my pay grade.

But sometimes, death is the best option! Death can bring sweet relief from pain and suffering. Sometimes, like with Israel and their exile, the end of one set of circumstances rescued them from a path that was getting progressively worse. So death stopped evil before evil won that battle.

We live in a fallen, sinful world. The results of sin are everywhere, including disease and catastrophe. We can’t escape the sin soup in which we live. And sometimes when we are eating a really good meal we spill food on our shirts. We get the results of this sinful world on us whether we want it or not.

I know that this doesn’t help when we are in the middle of the suffering. The best thing we can do is just be with the suffering. Join in with those who are suffering. Do as Job’s friends did for those first few days. They just sat with Job and said nothing. No answers are sufficient. But we can bring our silent presence. And that helps people know they are not alone. And alone is just about the worst thing that can happen.