POEMS BETWEEN THE BEGINNING AND THE END - Introduction

(My books are available on Amazon at this link.)

(Before becoming a preacher, a nurse, an amateur artist, or a massage therapist, I was a poet. I still am. Getting my poetry published in more than homemade binders had been a dream for years. Health challenges and the rise of modern book-publishing technology merged to motivate me to make the effort. This and my other books are published through Kindle Direct Publishing in both paperback and Kindle editions.

I wanted to put the introductory essays for each poetry collection on my blog. If you want to know what makes me tick, my poems tell it better than a biography.

This "Introduction" and the concluding poem are from my 7th book of poems. To read the posts from my others, click on these links:
Poems Between Heaven and Hell;
Poems Between Darkness and Light;
Poems Between Death and Life;

Poems Between Birth and Resurrection;
Poems Between Here and Beyond;
Poems Between Fear and Faith.)

“Introduction” to

Poems Between the Beginning and the End

In a philosophy class in high school, I became enthralled with Augustine’s idea of time. He tried to show that by their sequential nature, time past and time future have dimension, while present time does not. At the point where past and future meet, there is nothing. Any seeming dimension in the present can be further divided into past and future. But, from the perspective of this dimensionless present, the past no longer exists and the future is yet to be.

These philosophically convoluted thoughts led me to ask, “Does time exist?” and to write an essay on it for that class. My teacher coached me in framing that same question into a suitable form and submitting it to Mortimer J. Adler’s weekly newspaper column. If that renowned educator and philosopher chose to discuss it, I would win a 54-volume set of Britannica’s Great Books of the Western World. That happens to be how I came to own that set of books.

Despite how valid the above arguments seem in showing  time’s nonexistence, modern astronomers and cosmologists depend mathematically on time’s real existence for their knowledge of the cosmos. In fact, from a subjective, psychological viewpoint, all of us bring the past into our present experience by recollection, and we can dream or visualize the future now by anticipation and planning. At the speed of thought, we jump from one past memory to another or from one future prospect to another. God designed us with a subconscious repository from which the conscious mind accesses these preoccupations in a manageable way, usually one item at a time.

From this psychological perspective, the past that we have lived has dimension in our present thought, and even our earthly future has a tentative existence and duration. What seems without dimension is our beginning and our end. They are like the front and back covers of a book whose pages contain the history of our earthly lives. We consciously experience nothing before our beginning, and unless we are told by God what comes after death, we cannot tangibly anticipate what comes after the back cover that ends our personal story.

Of paramount earthly importance to our humanness are identity and memory. I’ve come to believe that both exist as a functional union of the physical body and the spiritual soul through a uniquely formulated and parallel integration of cellular and spiritual DNA. This interactive arrangement provides for both individuality and memory. The physical DNA produces a neuro-network for memory’s manifestation in the material world, while the spiritual DNA governs the repository God designed in a person’s soul for its storage.

Neurologists can show that memories are consciously elicited by brain stimulation. Materialistic scientists take this as proof that the physical brain stores personal memory. To date, however, the actual physiological mechanism of that storage—in brains cells whose molecular matter is fully replaced about every 7 years—escapes explanation.

The manner of cerebral memory storage can never be discovered, if personal memories are stored in the soul and merely accessed by the brain, as cloud or disk memory is accessed by computer operators. Many with NDEs (near-death experiences) tell of still having their memories and identities as they float from hospital rooms into afterlife territory. After they return to their resuscitated bodies, what they saw and experienced is stored not in their brains, which were nonfunctional during the episode, but in their souls, which actually had the experience.

From the beginning of our DNA marriage between soul and body until it ends in death, our identity is not static. Sin and the Fall have damaged our biological DNA so that the deterioration of aging is part of our earthly sojourn. Old age changes us physically. Conversely, the memories stored in our soul also change us, becoming part of what makes up our personalities. God graciously calls us and lovingly provides for us to expand our identities in the direction of who we really are in Him. But our free will can choose pathways that lead us away from the moral and servant-leadership purposes for which He made us body-spirit beings.

By the titles of all my poem books, I have attempted to convey the circumstantial tension in which human volition determines personal destiny. The context of life’s choices are both the pages between life’s book covers and the chapters that alternate between the way of self and the way of God—in other words, between heaven and hell; darkness and light; death and life; birth and resurrection; here and beyond; fear and faith; and now between the beginning and the end. It’s in this in-between space that we live and make choices, from the very outset to the final sunset.

At this period of my life, prostate cancer and heart problems have curtailed much of my bodily activity, yet each day only increases my soul’s desire to learn. While my thirst for theological knowledge is far from quenched, I have developed a voracious appetite for studying both molecular biology and cosmological astrophysics. The desire to grow in my experience with drawing and painting is still unmet. But, in the realm of poetry, part of that late-in-life ambition to learn and experience more is profusely reflected in the large number of explorations I’ve made in trying my hand at Japanese and Korean poetic styles. I’ll admit upfront that I’ve never made the proper distinction between haiku and senryu. I call all of my 3-line non-rhymes of 5-7-5 syllables haiku, when technically I know most of them fail to meet the exigencies of the form. On the other hand, I did try to follow the formal rules with my tanka and sijo.

My tendency to insert comic-relief into my poetic stream of frequently serious subject matter had a prolific growth spurt in this volume. Perhaps a closer view of my mortality, while increasing the depth of my seriousness, has led to  interspersing these pages with much more creative humor. As you will see, I discovered some new outlets for that in limerick-making and other word-play experimentation. And I must admit that, along with those fun and sometimes satirical creations, I made some serious attempts at new forms or lyric patterns as a result of entering poetry contests on Allpoetry.com. In fact, it was from a contest requiring a crown of sonnets that I decided to go beyond the entry requirements and work on an heroic crown of sonnets—14 sonnets with the last line of each becoming the first line of the next sonnet, and concluding with a master sonnet composed of all those previous first lines. The result was what I now consider my magnum opus. I wrote it right at the outset of the Covid-19 lockdown, when everything slowed to a standstill, except the gift of time.

Time truly is a gift. Cosmologists now realize that it had a beginning ex nihilo. But no matter how long the universe lasts, our personal slice of cosmic time has an endpoint. Someday all of what was our life’s future will be in storage as past memories. How our identities have grown toward God or away from Him will be all that matters in the afterlife. Skip my attempts at humor, if you must, but pay close attention to my serious stuff. As always, it is my hope and prayer that my more prophetic and spiritual messages in verse might help my readers make decisions for Christ that will bless them now and for eternity.

— David L. Hatton

PERSONAL PETITION

Lord, lead me safe on the physical plane

past life-draining pits on the upward path

where frolic’s folly brings bodily pain

or sins I avoid feed the devil’s wrath.

As my strength subsides and my powers wane,

Lord, lead me safe on the physical plane.

God, govern my will, as my mind grows old,

while my life-clock ticks till its spring’s unwound.

When the final days of my stay unfold,

keep my feelings calm and my thoughts still sound,

discerning the dross from the goal of gold—

God, govern my will, as my mind grows old.

As my soul declines, let my spirit sing;

as my mission ends, let my worship last.

May I still be grateful for everything

with a forward look, letting go the past.

To Your glory’s praise, ever-present King,

as my soul declines, let my spirit sing!

— David L. Hatton, 11/20/2020

(Poems Between the Beginning and the End, © 2021)

For more single poems from this volume, visit my website's “Poetry Page.”

DEATH IS REAL

The title is a no-brainer, but necessary. Almost universally, we avoid contemplating the obvious fact of universal mortality. But ignoring death’s inevitability can’t make it go away or help us face it. The following free verse poem (rare for me) is my attempt to emphasize the utter finality of eventually arriving at our individual earthly end point:

TERMINUS

Hourglass empty;
Measured cord cut;
Opportunities passed;
Possibilities exhausted;
Game over. . . .

End of discussion:
No more opinions;
All choices chosen;
Personal history frozen:
The last period
Forever terminating
The last sentence
In each autobiography
(Once partly private,
Hereafter an open book).

End of the trail,
Concluding all steps
Down all forks in the road
To finish the journey;
Point of no return;
The ticket’s last stop;
End of the line
At the final destination,
Where earthly life stops
And afterlife begins.

Whether delight,
In reward and rejoicing,
Or disaster,
In retribution and regret:
Gate shut. . . .

— David L. Hatton, 8/28/2015
(from Poems Between Here and Beyond © 2016)

As a Gospel preacher, my wish isn’t to create a morbid focus on death. I want to remind everyone to take their life-decisions seriously before death. But not all reminders about death do this equally well.
 
Inundation with news of death can be a blessing or a curse. Hearing of others dying warns us to prepare. We’re mortal, and sooner or later, we’ll leave this life for the afterlife. But a constant media stream—announcing the passing of faraway people unrelated to us—can numb our perception. Tragic stories of freak accidents, lethal illnesses, merciless homicides or desperate suicides may shock us, but to preserve mental hygiene, we dare not dwell on daily mortality reports too long. Yet dismissing them too quickly can dull us to what news of any death ought to instill: a resolve to be ready to face our own.

If media journalism fails, sometimes literary fine arts can succeed, especially when poets or novelists adeptly develop believable characters. Edgar Lee Masters showed this skill in his Spoon River Anthology—a free verse chronicle of an early 1900s Midwest community. Masters had the deceased of a fictitious village speak their own brief, autobiographical epitaphs from the grave. The voices of each terminated life stirs reflection, draws sympathy, or offers a cautionary reality-check. In the latter case, the message usually gives an alert or an advisory about life, as exemplified in the following excerpts from two of the poems, “Harold Arnett” (a suicide) and “Lucinda Matlock”:

I pulled the trigger… blackness… light…
Unspeakable regret… fumbling for the world again.
Too late! Thus I came here,
With lungs for breathing… one cannot breathe here with lungs,
Though one must breathe.…
Of what use is it
To rid one’s self of the world,
When no soul may ever escape the eternal destiny of life?
    *    *    *
At ninety-six I had lived enough, that is all,
And passed to a sweet repose.
What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

Recently, I finished the murder mystery Deadline, a page-turner by novelist and Bible teacher Randy Alcorn. His credible characters allowed him to weave much into the story to provoke serious thought about living right and dying well. Such novels can change a person’s perspective on how to live and how to die. Certain readers might evade Alcorn’s intent by claiming the obvious: “It’s only fiction.” But this novel’s moral imperatives are not make-believe, and its decisive fork in the road at Christ’s Cross leads either to the heavenly bliss of eternal life or to the ultimate death of everlasting separation from God.

Death in fiction and poetry can be powerful and moving, but when closer to home, it’s another matter. At the passing of neighbors, friends, relatives, a parent, our spouse, a son or daughter, we mourn more deeply and ponder our loss much longer. Over time, grief may subside, but reminding memorablia in our immediate environment frequently resuscitate and extend the pain of the parting. Achieving a complete goodbye may take years, or we may still be in the process when it’s our turn to depart. While some call belief in an afterlife superstitious, the goodbye intrinsic to grief may unconsciously express the hope contained in the contracted phrase from which it derives: “God be wi’ ye!” Almost as a cultural reflex—and perhaps even contrary to one’s personal doubts or unbelief—the human tendency is to add to “God be with you” the colloquially familiar phrase “till we meet again.”

Because these nearer and dearer incidents of death are not quickly forgotten, the personal message they offer is not as easily brushed aside. Our thoughts linger on missing faces. We reminisce about lost embraces. I believe there’s a built-in human longing—an afterlife hope, stated or unstated—for a heavenly reunion, where we regain the presence of our departed loves ones and again feel their warm hugs.

The sterile worldview of modern philosophical materialism—a belief that time, space and matter are all that exist—cancels any hope for an afterlife. It evaluates personal individuality after death as “dust in the wind.” Religions envisioning God as a moral scorekeeper, who tallies our successes against our failures in life, provide no assurance that we’ll make it to such a reunion. But the Gospel call to follow Jesus Christ is relational. His personal promise is certain, inspiring confident faith. In John 14:2b-3 (NKJV), Jesus said, “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

Many years ago I wrote a poem to contrast what philosophies and religions offer with what the Gospel of Christ proclaims. I think it presents a perfect appeal on which to conclude these thoughts about the inevitability of death and what we need to decide before we meet it:

THE ANSWERING

Is there any meaning, a purpose why we’re here,
A reason for our living and dying day by day?
Could there be a message that comes from the beginning,
Outside our world of striving? Is someone there to say?

If it is all illusion, if we are just machines,
How can we measure value? Are we worth more or less?
If we are merely atoms that clumped by time and chance,
Why deem ourselves so precious upon vague hope and guess!

If only Someone’s out there to speak His love by word,
To tell us who we are; if only Someone came,
Then we’d have an answer. (Religion gave too many—
Science forgot our souls), but He’d have to leave His name.

Science said, “Keep searching.” Religion said, “Try harder.”
Some said, “Do your own thing.” And others said, “Be brave!”
But tell me how to listen. The voice of pain is loud!
The wounded scream around us. We face an open grave. . . .

But One came speaking purpose  and wept at pain and death
And healed the brokenhearted. “A lunatic,” said some.
But He said Someone sent Him named Father God and Love.
He claimed to seek the lost ones; that One who came said,
“Come.”

— David L. Hatton, 8/23/1978
(from Poems Between Heaven and Hell ©1991, 2014)

THE PANDEMIC’S PANIC-DEMIC

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power

and of love and of a sound mind. — 2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

Many Christians, including myself, began the year 2020 hoping it would be one of 20/20 vision, a year for gaining a clearer perspective on God’s will and purposes for us as His people. The verse prefacing this article encourages us not to despair of that hope. What the Apostle Paul proclaimed to Timothy predates all the fearful crises of history that followed its writing and still tells us what thwarts the “spirit of fear” that typically accompanies all such critical times.

When frightful dangers do take control of the mind, panic is the result. But God gave us “a sound mind,” one equipped with the spiritual fruit of self-control. This divine inheritance should distinguish our response to dangers from that of a worldly reaction, as Paul makes clear in Romans 8:15 (NKJV), For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Pressing down on one side of the contemporary scales is the authentically bad news of a global plague. On the other side of the scales is the infinitely weightier Good News of who we are in Christ. But, before examining how our identity as God’s children tips the balances, I want to discuss another balancing act between bad news and some better news that is currently in effect for everyone.

Despite heated disputes about the political and medical nature of this present pandemic, the bad news is very harsh: many more will die from Covid-19. Neither the growing fears broadcast by mainline media nor the reassuring rebuttals proclaimed in social media will prevent Corona-virus-related deaths from mounting. Yes, traditionally wise hygienic practices may slow the spread. But none of the public’s confidently debated opinions—about the need for masks or their risks, social distancing or its ineffectiveness, lock-downs or their socio-economic dangers, vaccine development’s possibility or impossibility—will eliminate these tragic deaths. That’s the bad news.

In the midst of this crisis, however, there is some better news that is more hopeful: most who get infected with the virus will survive. That statistical reality decreases with age, especially with those of us who are approaching or have surpassed the average human life expectancy. These same morbidity-rate statistics have characterized other epidemics, as well as life in general: the elderly always die at a higher rate than those younger. But the news media’s focus has been on the deadliness of the virus and not on the survival rate. That one-sided emphasis is a contributing factor in this pandemic becoming a panic-demic. Our stressed-out society needs some encouraging news right now. Hearing that only a low percentage of those contracting Covid-19 will die from it is a much needed encouragement.

But, while the bad news is outweighed by this better news, there’s actually worse news than what we’re facing from this current pandemic. In fact, it’s what most people feel is the very worst news. Yet, there is also some much better news than surviving Covid-19, for those who are willing to believe it. In fact, it’s the best news on the planet! The worst news is already well known but usually ignored: sooner or later, all of us will die. The best news is divinely true but often doubted: because of what Jesus Christ did for us, we do not have to be afraid of dying.

Death is a universal reality. It isn’t increased by lethal diseases, by acts of violence, or by unforeseen accidents. Such fatalities do shorten our personal lifespans, but regardless of what form death takes, it is always 100% effective in removing each person from this planet. This is much worse news than the bad news of the Covid-19 death-count. The fact that it’s really just the same old news we’ve always known about doesn’t trivialize everyone’s suffering from this pandemic, but it does offer us a realistic perspective on the limits of earthly life.

We will each die from something, and the odds are that it won’t be from the CV-19 bug. This virus should not be identified with the Grim Reaper. It is merely a new tool of his for maintaining human mortality. But the broadcast focus on his recent use of it has made some people stop watching TV’s bad news reports altogether. This popular media-boycotting may not be so much a way of ignoring the contagion as an attempt to find some peace of mind. Such a motive would be a tacit statement that humans do not thrive on morbid fear but on hopeful faith.

This is where the best news comes in, at least for those willing to believe in what was accomplished by the Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because of Romans 3:23 and 6:23, Christians know that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and that Jesus countered sin’s universal sentence of capital punishment on the human race: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” These basic Bible teachings confront the inevitability of earthly death with the divine provision of heavenly life.

Putting trust in Christ provides not just forgiveness for sins but a life where death need no longer cause fear or panic. Hebrews 2:14-15 (NIV) explains why this is so: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Until Resurrection Day, bodily death will continue, even if a CV-19 infection is survived. But for Christian believers, death is no longer a frightening terminus. Departing from this life escorts us into the presence of our Savior and Lord.

Having healthy fear is a necessity, especially when it alerts us to moral and mortal dangers that God wants us to avoid. Jesus was highlighting healthy, godly fear, when He said, “My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!” (Luke 12:4-5, NKJV). But, because anxious human fear is unhealthy, Jesus also told us in Matthew 6:34 (ESV), “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

Despite these troubled and trying times, those following Jesus should not cave in to this pandemic’s panic-demic. We are not called to imitate those who, by rejecting faith in Christ, are still “held in slavery by their fear of death.” This global crisis is indeed extremely troublesome and tragic. But it’s only one episode of trouble in a world that has been full of tragedy ever since our first parents were banished from Eden. Whether or not the gatekeepers of modern media continue to inspire fear with bad news reports, believers must heed and hold on to what our death-conquering King told us in a special verse that we should all memorize: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33, NIV)

In a poem I wrote some time ago (“Be of Good Cheer”—the KJV’s rendering of the NIV’s “take heart”), I expand and expound these personal words that Jesus spoke for our encouragement. It pictures Jesus telling us how we need to respond to critical challenges like those imposed by this viral plague. Its rhyming lines also offer an apt conclusion for my intent in this article. My goal is not only to keep my Christian brothers and sisters from letting this pandemic fill their lives with panic and pandemonium, but to encourage them to be living and dying witnesses to unbelievers who do not yet share our faith and marvelous hope in Christ.

BE OF GOOD CHEER
(John 16:33)

Trials and tragedies, trouble and pain,
Hopes that are dashed amid dreams that are slain:
All of these pepper the world where you dwell,
Making your life just a little like hell.

Satan may threaten, and demons may swarm,
Yet I am with you in tempest and storm.
This I will promise: your heart will have peace,
As you let go in My Spirit’s release.

Yes, there is darkness, disease and despair
Marring My beautiful world everywhere.
That’s why I came, to connect with each loss
By the embrace of My sin-laden Cross.

Be of good cheer in the Message you’ve heard.
Others have suffered who knew not My Word.
Others are hurting who still know Me not—
Yours is the cross that can light up their lot.

Take tribulations and trials you face . . .
Plunge them in love by the strength of My grace.
Follow My path, when the suffering grows.
Cherish the Cross! It will conquer your foes!

— David L. Hatton, 7/12/2000 (revised, 1/17/2014)
(from Poems Between Here and Beyond © 2016)

DEATH & LIFE AT THE TABLE

(Online Holy Communion link here and at bottom of this article)

Holy Communion, or the Eucharist [from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”], is a powerful means of grace. I touched on this briefly in my blog article of 3/9/2018, “Two ‘Means of Grace’ for Healing,” which you might want to read before this one. God has never stopped using means of grace, although most Christians today have stopped thinking clearly about them. But we must be very clear on the Table. For too many years Holy Communion has been treated as merely an act of ritual obedience. The Eucharist must be retrieved for what it is: a means of grace for personal spiritual growth, inner healing and, at times, spiritual warfare.

A Mystery Beyond Human Speculation

The Lord’s Supper is a mystery. Making what’s on the Table fit our theological explanations may comfort human minds, but it often robs Holy Communion of its centrality to Christian life and witness. Disputes about the virtues of one position over another have divided the Body of Christ. It might be best to approach the Table always repenting that we ever tolerated such division. Roman Catholics insist on transubstantiation, the more ancient Orthodox on objective transformation; for Lutherans it’s a sacramental union, for the Reformed a spiritual union, or for many other Protestants, a holy memorial; unfortunately, for some denominations, it was a temporary rite no longer needed. Please, for the sake of our King, put all these rationally-defended theories and viewpoints on hold and bask in the mystery. Heaven will eventually vindicate or obliterate your chosen view. But right now, and for the rest of your earthly life, be a servant subject to our Sovereign Lord, and take Him at His word. With the trust of childlike faith, regardless of your viewpoint, accept at face value what is written in the Book:

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (John 6:53-57, NASB)

And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood,” (Luke 22:19-20, NASB).

And to solidify your meditation on the Eucharistic mystery, plunge your heart deep into what Paul says about the ongoing celebration of this Holy Meal: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16, ESV, emphasis mine). Both Paul’s understanding and Christ’s clear instruction should convince us that approaching this sacred Table is physically the closest we can get to what Jesus accomplished on Calvary. In a mysterious way, to “eat this bread and drink this cup” is to both participate in and “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26, NIV).

A Table of Death

Christ’s crucifixion was a terminus, an end point for many things; His Resurrection, the beginning for many others. The Cross and empty tomb divided time into BC and AD—now renamed BCE and CE, which hasn’t altered that division. They closed the Old Testament with a New Covenant, turning a Jewish story into a global one. For every believer, they end the old life with new birth, as sacramentally portrayed in baptism.

Baptism—a one-time rite for initiation into the Christian community—is a burial of the old life (as in a watery tomb) and an emergence into a newborn life (as from a watery womb). Paul describes this in very plain language: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3-4, ESV). This break with the old life and entrance into the new life is demonstrated once in baptism, but our ongoing need for replacing old ways of living with Christlike living is repeatedly demonstrated at the Table. There we participate again and again in the fruits of Christ’s sacrifice and empty tomb for the rest of our earthly sojourn.

It’s highly significant that Jesus introduced foot-washing in the context of His Table. He told Peter its purpose in John 13:10 (ESV): “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.” Whether or not foot-washing accompanies Holy Communion, the need for cleansing is ongoing. We bring to the Table an array of worldly attitudes and behaviors that we must part with and leave behind. They need to die, and Paul says their death is the work of Christ’s Cross: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” (Galatians 6:14, NIV).

God is not into magic. Physically taking the Eucharist does not automatically free us from worldliness. This is why Jesus said, “you are clean, but not every one of you.” Judas missed out, despite having his feet washed by Jesus and eating the new Passover meal. An authentic participation in the body and blood of Christ at the Table is a relational act dependent on personal faith. Just as baptism is a physical confession of faith in Christ’s work on Calvary, so is partaking of the fruits of the Cross presented to us again on the Table. This makes Holy Communion a means of grace—a focal point where God’s power can put to death those vestiges of worldly ways clinging to our lives—as long as we faithfully bring them to Him, remembering that the purpose for His death was to eliminate them from our lives.

Practically, this means spending time in prayer before coming to the Eucharistic Meal, asking the Holy  Spirit to convict us in whatever areas we have participated in those dispositions and deeds that belong to the realm of darkness. It may be helpful to ask Him to show us if we have:

• any attitude we need to confess and forsake
• any behavior we need to bring to an end
• any habit or addiction from which we need to be set free
• any laziness or laxity needing banishment from our lives
• any ties we have inherited or formed that need to be severed
• any obsessions or compulsions that need to be broken
• anything else in us that needs to die

But the most profound question to be asked and answered is the one Jesus asked of the lame man, “Do you want to be healed?” (John 5:6, ESV). This is the primary question. Do we really want to change? Are we ready to bring to His Table whatever needs to die, whatever needs to end, to cease, to stop? If we do, we will agree with whatever the Holy Spirit points out to us and make it our intention to bring them to the crucifying work of Christ represented on the Table and leave them there.

A Table of Life

If we have made our prayerful preparation and are bringing our worldly trash and baggage to leave at the Table, we will likely approach Holy Communion with tears of grief. It is right to be sorrowful that such things have been held back from our Lord, in spite of having received new birth from Him. But when what the Holy Spirit has shown us is left on the Table, we can then take His life from the Table with tears of joy and celebration. Holiness and wholeness and freedom must fill up those areas where unrighteousness and darkness and bondage have been banished.

This participation in His resurrection life is a relational act of faith in its initiation and its continuation. When you accepted Christ as your Savior, you entered salvation by new birth. But you have been exhorted to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose,” (Philippians 2:12-13, NIV). Jesus stipulated baptism as a physical faith-affirmation of new birth, and He gave us His Table as an ongoing physical faith-reminder of our need to let His resurrection life fill every area of our personal lives.

With the same heart-searching prayer and personal intention, we must come to the Table of Christ’s resurrected life, taking from Him what we need in the area of:

• attitudes and desires aligned with the mind of Him Who indwells us
• choices and behaviors that reflect “not my will but Yours be done”
• habits of devotion to prayer, Bible study and spiritual growth
• a serious concern for others and commitment to serve them
• gathering with other Christians for spiritual fellowship
• waging spiritual warfare against the realm of darkness
• whatever else God reveals that needs to come alive in us

Christian growth is based not on accumulating knowledge about God and the Scriptures, but on obeying God’s will and making Jesus Lord of our lives. We can’t do that on our own. We’re totally dependent on Christ’s resurrected life in us to empower us to live and grow as Christians. But God has given us physical means of grace to highlight our dependence on Him, and Holy Communion is one of them.

Conclusion

We may not be used to thinking of physical rituals, like baptism and Holy Communion, as truly spiritual activities. We may have a Gnostic view that sees no relationship between the physical and the spiritual, no intrinsic union between the body and the spirit. If so, have ignored God’s many uses of physical means of grace throughout Scripture, but worse, we have fail to uphold the central significance of Christ’s incarnation, bodily death and resurrection. Our faith is incarnational, or it is not the Christian faith found in the New Testament. The fruits of the Cross and of the Resurrection are on the Table, and Christ’s “in remembrance of Me,” includes His words, “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” Embrace the mystery and participate in it.

I hope that all reading this article will discover a new way of coming to the Communion Table. I hope all will start seeing it as a return to the Cross, where Christ’s death brings us life, by putting our old life to death so that we can freely participate in His resurrected life. The following poem makes an apt conclusion, describing the approach both to the Cross and to the Table.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE CROSS

Brokenly we stumble down the twisted trails of life,
Struggling to discover peace in self-made worlds of strife,
Fighting to escape our fears of losing what we gain,
Craving for a feast of pleasures free from any pain.
Yet, upon these broad and damning roads beneath our feet,
There’s a solemn shadow that our steps may often meet.
In the setting sun of earthly dreams there stands a Cross,
Casting hope upon those paths of everlasting loss.

From its slender shade, which seems at first so cramped and tight,
Comes a whispered offer for a journey into Light.
Once, there was no exit; now a doorway stands in view,
Open for the weary passerby to walk on through.

Oh but how it looks constricted, narrow as the grave,
Waiting to convert the seeker’s soul into its slave
By its strong death-dealing nails for fixing limbs to wood:
No more wandering the world we thought we understood;
No more squandering of precious gifts that God bestows;
No more pity for ourselves for self-engendered woes;
No more place for stubbornness within our willful heart—
Selfish thrones must topple, proud dominions fall apart;
No more so-called freedom for our flesh to play the fool;
Only crucifixion, setting Jesus free to rule . . .

Harsh and strict, this pathway through the Cross of Christ appears,
Warning all who enter of its dark side’s loss and tears.
Yet, if we have thought it out and in that way have stepped,
We elude what choked our lives, rejoicing where we wept.

Such emancipation on the Cross’s other side
Opens up to us a realm extremely rich and wide.
Heaven’s light unveils a vast expanse where glory shines.
Holy wealth with pure delight and beauty intertwines.
Far beyond imagination, rapture fills our souls.
Endless joy in useful service flows from godly goals.
What were not true friendships in the world we leave behind
Change to new, real fellowship we’d always hoped to find.
On the Cross’s brighter side, our destination’s clear.
Working out His Word and will, we sense His presence near.

Jesus walked the dying side to hellish depths below
To unlock the living side, where treasures overflow:
Mysteries of faith and prayer, His Body’s bread and wine,
Light of Life, a life of Love, and love for Light Divine.
What He purchased when He hung as “nothing” on the Tree
Was to be our everything: His life in you and me.

So, don’t flee the Cross because you see its darker side.
Don’t keep running off to find a wider place to hide.
Stop and leave the worldly highway, choose no more to roam:
Make the Cross of Jesus yours, and it will lead you home.

— David L. Hatton, 4/6/1993
(from Poems Between Darkness and Light ©1994, 2014)

( For a 10-minute, online Holy Communion
 observance, go to https://youtu.be/lWQtfOM3caY )

THE CRÈCHE AND THE CROSS

The Nativity scene, or “Crèche,” was once a common American sight during the Advent season, not only on church properties but in homes and town squares. Today, secularization has banished its presence from many public places and governmental locations. Yet Christmas has survived the political “humbugs” of modern scrooges, despite how its true meaning is often lost in the annual busyness of holiday activities.

When set up inside or outside a church, Christ’s Crèche may be in visual proximity to His Cross. Both sights, taken together, offer crucial insight into the true meaning of Christmas, as expressed in John 3:16 (NKJV), “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The name Christmas comes from “Christ’s Mass,” a Eucharistic celebration to honor the birth of Jesus. Yet the bread and wine on the Table is a spiritual “communion” with His body and blood, sacrificed on the Cross to purchase salvation for all who believe. It was a divine plan: Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that He could die on Golgotha’s hill.

In 2006, while taking Holy Communion at a Christmas Eve service, I was meditating on Christ’s words in John 6:54-56, “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” It put this bond of the Crèche with the Cross to the forefront of my thoughts, and on Christmas Day I wrote the following poem:

CHRISTMAS EVE COMMUNION(1)

Last night I fed on Christmas in the broken bread and wine.

I tasted sacred nourishment that brought God’s life to mine.

With thoughts of Mary’s holy Child, by candlelight and songs,

I worshiped at the Table where all Adam’s race belongs.

I pondered how the sweetness of our Lord’s nativity

Should never be seen separate from His death upon the tree;

How God, wrapped up in human flesh, sojourned with human need,

How hands that sculpted human form could feel our pain and bleed;

How incarnation taught Him through life’s weariness and sweat;

How only after learning these, He chose to pay our debt.

Last night I fed on Christmas, and the strength I gained was real.

Our present peace and future hope draw meaning from that Meal.

Our banishment is ended; our empty lostness gone.

The Babe and Lamb of Bethlehem is Whom I feasted on.

— David L. Hatton, 12/25/2006

When I wrote that poem, the union of the Crèche and the Cross wasn’t new to me. I had poetically tried to capture the same concept 14 years earlier in another, longer poem. In it, I attempted to intermingle Mary’s heart of grief at the foot of the Cross with her remembrance of the Christmas story as recorded in the Gospels:

MARY AT THE CROSS (2)

Time suspended, time that stops

In between the crimson drops:

As they tumble to the ground

Somehow she can stare around

Seeing scenes of yesterday,

Hearing angel’s words that say,

“Highly favored, have no fear!

From your virgin womb this year

By the Spirit’s power alone

Comes the King for David’s throne,

Sinner’s Savior, Holy One,

God Almighty’s only Son.”

Then, the words her cousin told

(As it trickles red and cold,

His life-blood before the tomb),

“Blest, the fruit that fills your womb!

Blest are you of womankind,

Mother of our Lord Divine!”

And her song sung in reply,

“My soul praises God on high!

In my Savior I rejoice!

Making me His humble choice,

Causing all to call me ‘blest,’

God has done for me the best!

Mighty is His holy name,

Ageless grace, and endless fame!”

As she stands before His cross,

Feeling pain, heart-rending loss,

She remembers public shame,

Pregnant with no man to blame.

She recalls dear Joseph’s care:

Taught by dreams her task to share,

How he guarded her from scorn

Till the baby boy was born . . .

Worried when her pains began

As they came to Bethlehem,

He implored each house and hall

Just to find a stable stall.

In its filth the baby came

’Neath an oily torch’s flame.

Wakened by a holy light,

Shepherds visited that night.

Angels beckoned them to run

To the town to find the One

Called the Christ whose wondrous birth

Brought down Heaven’s peace to earth.

On the hill called Calvary

Witnessing his agony,

Aching with a dreadful sob,

Hearing laughter from the mob,

She, with other women’s tears,

Weeps and dreams back through the years

To the visit of the Three:

Magi from the East to see

Little Jesus on her lap

Swaddled in a woolen wrap.

Frankincense and myrrh and gold,

“Royal presents,” they were told.

One day he would reign as King. . .

How could they have said this thing,

When with torment now he cries

Up to cold and silent skies?

Darkness gathers, shadows fall,

Thunder echoes with his call. . .

Mournful cry: “My God!  My God!”

She falls prostrate on the sod.

Then she somehow overhears

Whispered words that ease her fears,

Words that re-ignite the dream

Shattered by her son’s last scream.

“It is finished!” he had cried.

Now the guard that pierced his side

Whispers when the deed is done,

“Surely He was God’s own Son!”

Mary keeps that faithful word

In her thoughts until she’s heard

Peter tell her, “He arose,”

Smiles, and nods as if she knows. . .

How could it be otherwise?

And again her heart replies,

Filled with overwhelming love,

“My soul praises God above!

In my Savior I rejoice!

Making me His humble choice,

Causing all to call me ‘blest,’

God has done for me the best!

Mighty is His holy name,

Ageless grace, and endless fame!”

— David L. Hatton, 2/8/1992

In my 25 years of helping laboring moms in the hospital, I had to work half of my Christmases. It was always a sentimental thrill to see babies delivered on the day set aside to celebrate Christ’s birth. The joy of their entry into the world, however, could be dampened by knowing that each of them would someday have to face their departure from this life. But that same contemplation on Christ’s Creche and Cross—and the hope they together offer to the human race—makes a Christian’s journey from the cradle to the grave extravagantly hopeful.

Christmas reminds us of that hope, if we have placed our trust in Jesus, the Babe of Bethlehem and the sacrificial “Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” As the Advent season closes the old year and initiates a new one, so faith in Christ ends an old self-directed life and begins a new God-directed one. And, as my favorite quote at Christmastime says:

“Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,

 If he’s not born in thee thy soul is still forlorn.

 Should Christ be born a thousand times anew,

 Despair, O man, unless he’s born in you!”

  — Angelus Silesius (1624-1677)

___________________________
(1) from Poems Between Birth and Resurrection ©2013.
(2) from Poems Between Darkness and Light ©1994.

POEMS BETWEEN HERE AND BEYOND - Introduction

(My books are available on Amazon at this link.)

(Before becoming a preacher, a nurse, an amateur artist, or a massage therapist, I was a poet. I still am. Getting my poetry published in more than homemade binders had been a dream for years. Health challenges and the rise of modern book-publishing technology merged to motivate me to make the effort. This and my other books are published through Kindle Direct Publishing in both paperback and Kindle editions.

I wanted to put the introductory essays for each poetry collection on my blog. If you want to know what makes me tick, my poems tell it better than a biography.

This "Introduction" and the concluding poem are from my 5th book of poems. To read the posts from my others, click on these links:

Poems Between Heaven and Hell

Poems Between Darkness and Light;

Poems Between Death and Life;

Poems Between Birth and Resurrection;

Poems Between Fear and Faith;

Poems Between the Beginning and the End.)

“Introduction” to

Poems Between Here and Beyond

Ancient Chinese wisdom aptly pictures humans with feet on earth and heads in heaven. We inhabit two worlds, one tangible, measurable, concrete; the other intangible, difficult to measure, often elusive. Men and women are body-spirit beings, participating simultaneously in two modes of existence: material and mental. We’re not spirits wrapped in flesh or bodies with souls, but a marriage of them, a wedding of the animal and the angelic, an amalgamation of the chemical and the transcendent, a unique union embodying God’s image.

We can’t escape being replicas of our Creator. If we try denying our God-likeness, human art betrays us in paintings, plays, novels, songs, poems and other creative works. We image a Supreme Artist. Or if we try denying God as the Decider of “good and evil,” we empty our own personal moralities of meaning. We can’t remove an Ultimate Authority from the human equation without forfeiting the divine certainty that we are “very good” parts of creation (Gen 1:31).

Confidence in a Self-revealing God gives us a much more solid and human-friendly perspective. His existence (God reveals Himself in Scripture as “Father”) makes creativity and morality not just gifts but callings. As image-bearers of the Designer and Judge of all things, we were meant to mimic Him. He calls us to create new designs and to live holy lives.

Communicating truth is also part of that divine image. God is love, and love communicates. So, the God of truth and love is also a Communicator, sharing truth with us and infusing into us a persistent attraction to it. This explains why human creativity is often an attempt to communicate, using story, song, poetry, music, dance, drawing, sculpture.

Perhaps our greatest purpose in imaging God is to be His ruling representatives. He made us mediators, belonging to both the cosmic and celestial worlds. Ultimately, His revealed plan is to bring both realms under a single, divine government administered by human servant-leaders.

This coming reign has a human King, in fact, “the King of kings and the Lord of lords” (Rev 19:16). The Old Testament foretold His First Advent—the transcendent God’s incarnation into creation as a human being “to reconcile all things to Himself” (Col 1:20). The New Testament culminates in His Second Advent: the God-Man’s return in His resurrected body to reign over “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). Although this renewed universe awaits future fulfillment, it has already begun in the hearts of those following this Savior, Jesus Christ. In a real sense, the future is already here while still on its way.

This kingdom context is where I live, think, preach, and write poetry. Along with others in Christ’s Body—His Bride, the Church—I serve as one of the King’s royal ambassadors in a familiar but foreign land. It’s familiar, because He created it, sustains it, and plans to fully renew it. But it’s foreign, because human sin and selfishness have misshapen it. His kingdom has come, but it’s still coming. Jesus initiated God’s salvation plan, but we still pray for His reign’s full consummation, using the familiar words He taught us: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt 6:10). Christians live in a world of already but not yet. So does everyone else, even if unconsciously.

As I’ve aged, I’ve become more aware of the body-spirit nature of humanity. The here-and-now of the material world is quite blatant. We spend time and energy maintaining the body and its health, engaging in labor and leisure, accumulating and managing possessions. But the beyond of the spiritual world impinges on these material dimensions of life with a long list of immaterial values and virtues, some of which are listed as fruits of the Holy Spirit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).

While our spiritual lives anticipate a destiny hereafter, our future afterlife begins here and now. Christ’s First Advent firmly planted the future’s presence in historical time. His earthly work established an ongoing beachhead of God’s Kingdom in our fallen, sin-scarred world. Tradition calls this holy battalion the Church Militant—Christ’s loyal followers still engaged in earthly spiritual warfare. The Church Triumphant comprises that group of faithful souls who now rest from life’s labors, awaiting a reunion with their physical bodies promised by Christ’s resurrection. Yet, by that mystery described in the Creed as “the communion of saints,” these departed believers are still surrounding us as “a great cloud of witnesses” (Heb 12:1), watching our progress in faith and cheering us on to victory. Christians live between a present here and future beyond.

All my previous poetry books are “poems between.” While this introduction explains the name of this fifth one, its title certainly doesn’t account for the wide variety of themes and thoughts expressed by the poems included—some written years ago and some included merely for comic relief. But this long preface does describe where and in what frame of mind most of them were written. At this stage of my life, I feel even more keenly my location in this “between” mode of living. Yet, although less active now, since my retirement from hospital nursing, I also feel in the midst of dynamic momentum.

We never move through time; time moves through us. Our present is without dimension, sandwiched between an irrevocable past and an unfurling future. The now dividing them cannot be subdivided, but it can be wasted. We can ignore our calling as God’s image-bearers, squandering the remaining days of our sojourn between here and beyond in trivial pursuits. I pray these poems paint pictures, sing songs, preach sermons, tell tales that will stimulate awareness of time’s limits and encourage decisions of personal involvement in the present and future reign of the King.

— David L. Hatton

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

BABIES

All babies bring from heaven
Some vestiges at birth
To modify the burdens
And daily grind of earth.
Angelic light still gleaming
From eyes that know no guile,
They capture us with wonder
And charm us with their smile.

When parents are devoted,
Their inborn love protects
These precious little infants,
Just as the Lord expects.
But this is not the reason
He calls adults to share
Their sweet maternal nurture
And strong paternal care.

God sends us helpless babies,
So innocent and dear,
To challenge selfish habits
That we’ve picked up down here;
To lift us from our folly
And fill our empty cup;
To teach us precious lessons
And help us to grow up.

— David L. Hatton, 10/5/2015
(Poems Between Here and Beyond, © 2016)

For more single poems from this volume, visit my website's “Poetry Page.”

SOUL AWAKE—DNA SLEEPING

Death has different meanings in Scripture, depending on what part of a person dies. Paul’s prayer in Thessalonians 5:23 (WEB) lists these parts: “May your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

 These three components or our human nature are similarly described in the creation of Adam: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath [spirit] of life; and man became a living soul.” (Gen 2:7, KJV).

What is the Soul?

The soul seems to begin when that fleshly dust and spiritual breath come together. It connects them as a God-designed mediator. Our soul integrates our visible animal bodies and our invisible angelic spirits, making us body-spirit beings who can interact with both the material and spiritual realms. These three parts of our humanity form a lifelong amalgamation—a human trinity—that images the Creator in special ways, both separately and in union.

The soul has self-awareness and a personal identity that thinks, feels, chooses, and remembers. Other people can perceive an individual’s spiritual character when the soul reveals his or her unique personality via the body. A person’s soul, though not seen directly, is recognized through the bodily activity of thoughts communicated, emotions expressed, and actions taken.

A computer can illustrate this tri-unity of body, soul, and spirit. The body with its brain, nervous system, sense organs and musculature, is like the computer’s motherboard, RAM and ROM memory, hard drive, and input and output devices. The spirit is like the electrical power energizing the whole unit. But the different programs loaded and the personally stored data make up the functional soul of the computer.When the power is turned off or an essential physical component breaks down, the programs and data continue to exist on disk or backed up on a cyberspace memory cloud. When the physical computer (body) is turned on (spirit), it has a functional character (soul). The computer’s body is visible; its electrical spirit is not. While the programs and data are also invisible, they become uniquely recognizable through the running computer. While not perfect, this analogy might be helpful to some.

The “Soul Sleep” Misinterpretation

Because the Bible often speaks of death as “sleep,” some teach that the soul goes nowhere at death but either ceases to exist or unconsciously rests in “the grave” with its disintegrating corpse. The latter scenario becomes a strained interpretation when the grave is the ocean, or when an explosion literally makes a real grave impossible. The former idea fails to explain the martyred souls in heaven described in Revelation. Those “souls” weren’t asleep in their graves but had wide-awake wills actively choosing to express mental thoughts with strong emotional feeling, all in a definite, non-earthly location:

“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:9-10, KJV)

If it’s important in our conception of death to know which part of us dies, it’s also important to know which part of humanity is sleeping, when Scripture metaphorically uses “sleep” to indicate death. People can mistake which part is asleep by confusing the metaphor. The appearance of literal sleep provides the metaphorical significance of “sleep” as a description of how a dead body appears. Observers no longer see choices of the will, perceive no more sad or happy feelings, hear no thoughts being communicated. Shake a dead person vigorously. Why is there no response? “The dead know nothing,” says Ecclesiastes 9:5. The corpse is profoundly asleep. The dead body has nothing more to do with the ongoing activities of this physical world, except to disintegrate and be reabsorbed by it.

What Sleeps in the Body’s Death?

Christians believe that bodies, sleeping in death, will awaken at the resurrection. How so? How can a buried corpse absorbed by a tree root, or a drowned body scattered throughout the ocean, or one vaporized by an fiery explosion, be reconstructed into its original state as a resurrected body? In Christ’s resurrection, all the matter in His body was still local. In ours, some molecules from those who died at sea might end up on our table in the next bite of fish. This thought may bring emotional discomfort, but it poses no scientific problem. What sleeps in death is not the body’s array of personal dust but each person’s specific arrangement of DNA.

The material composing the bodies of living creatures is in constant flux. Cellular structures are continuously being built up or repaired with new molecules taken in as food. Old cell material is likewise being broken down and discarded from the body as waste. This process of construction and destruction replaces all the atoms in a human body approximately every seven years. In other words, “we’re not what we used to be.” We’re not living in the material body we had seven years ago. Even the old atoms on each double-helix DNA molecule have been exchanged for new ones. However, the DNA stays the same, except perhaps for some minor mutations.

When reduced to its essence, our personal DNA is a numerical arrangement, much like the computer’s stored programs. If the physical computer is destroyed, the programs can be reloaded on an entirely new unit. But the difference with DNA is that it holds the specific formula for the physical unit’s unique design. This is why I personally believe that the intangible numerical formula of our personal DNA—expressed tangibly in this life through the medium of matter—is registered in the soul and taken with it, along with our entire personal memory, when the soul and spirit leave the body in death. As far as our bodies are concerned, “we’re just a number,” but a number “wonderfully and fearfully made” by creation’s Master Mathematician.

Michelangelo's "Resurrection of the Dead"

On Resurrection Day, what’s the point of having our bodies restored from the same material our DNA was borrowing for the last seven years of our lives? Any nearby dust will do. What about the undesirable results of a believer’s DNA defects, caused by sin in a fallen world? Surely each of our DNA programming will be restored to the perfection of the Creator’s original design. Jesus said He “came to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10), and not only the soul and spirit were lost in the Fall. Christ’s glorious physical resurrection is the prototype of our own. He will reconstruct our bodies to be “like His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). Sadly, this hope for “the redemption of our bodies” is a part of the Gospel not emphasized in modern evangelism. Yet bodily resurrection is so important that Paul declares, “in this hope you were saved” (Romans 8:23b,24a, ESV).

Putting the Soul Sleep Doctrine to Sleep

But this resurrection hope doesn’t include the unconsciousness of the soul in death. Widespread belief in “soul sleep” or in the soul’s annihilation at death is relatively recent. Various versions of this concept have been held by Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses since the late 1800s. However, this doctrine is absent from the teachings of the primitive church, although one critic reports that “according to historian Philip Schaff, soul sleep fomented in the mind of a specious fourth century pantheist named Arnobius.”

In modern times, the growing number of those bold enough to share their personal testimonies of near-death experiences have confirmed the early church’s teaching. Even though these episodes are usually only “near-death,” some of those describing NDEs were professionally evaluated as clinically “dead.” In other words, God let them miraculously come back from death to tell their stories. While their descriptions may vary, these people unanimously report a continuing consciousness, sometimes seeing the bodies they left behind. They talk about still experiencing their soul’s ability to think, feel, choose and remember. It might take only one NDE to convince teachers of “soul sleep” that their doctrine was erroneous. If not, their final death certainly will.

In discussions with Jehovah’s Witnesses, I sometimes show them Genesis 49:33 in their New World Translation: “Thus Jacob finished giving these instructions to his sons. Then he drew his feet up onto the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people.” I explain how this verse mentions first body, then spirit, and finally soul. If they say, “Oh, but to be ‘gathered to his people’ means to go to the grave,” I show them the next verse, Genesis 50:1, “Joseph then threw himself on his father and wept over him and kissed him.” Then I point out, “You forgot something. Jacob wasn’t buried yet. His body was still there, but a special part of him had just been ‘gathered to his people.’ Don’t you find that theologically embarrassing?” No, they don't. A footnote in the Watchtower translation tells them to ignore the clear implications of this phrase by insisting it to be merely “a poetic expression for death” rather than a divine revelation of what actually happened. This is the kind of stubbornness that could benefit from an NDE.

I had a Seventh-day Adventist friend who was similarly adamant in her belief about the soul’s unconsciousness in death. When she died, I envisioned her immediately regretting her insistence on that doctrine. I even wrote a poem to be read at her graveside service, believing that someday in the afterlife she will thank me for doing so.

That poem is probably the best conclusion I can make for this article.

SOUL SLEEP

For eighteen hundred years was taught

That only corpses went to graves,

That souls went on, awake in thought,

While bodies slept ’neath dust or waves.

I choose to keep the older creed

That says our flesh must rest from toil,

Awaiting, like the planted seed,

That Day of Rising from the soil.

If later teachers’ words are right—

That souls must sleep before they rise—

Then when I hear that Trumpet bright,

I’ll wake up and apologize.

But if they’re wrong, then their mistake

Was known the moment that they died,

For even now they’re wide awake

Repenting for what they denied.

I’d rather be aroused from sleep

To find that I was duped by lies

Than be awake in death to weep

Till God decides to dry my eyes.

— David L. Hatton, 3/12/2013

(to be in Poems Between Here and Beyond)