XIII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME: Wisdom 1:13-15,2:23-24

A deep desire for eternal life

Nobody wants to die, and we do everything possible to delay death. We know that we are mortals and that sooner or later we will depart from this life and this world. However, we want to live and to live forever. In our hearts, there is a deep desire for eternal life. And death, coming to destroy that light and that hope, is seen as an enemy.

Who to blame for death

What is interesting is that, in the Bible, God is not blamed for death. This Sunday’s first reading says it very clearly: “Because God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the destruction of the living” (Wisdom 1:13). In the second story of creation (Gen 2:9), we are told that in the midst of the garden of Eden there two trees: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. While man was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge, he was not forbidden to eat from the tree life, because God is the God of life and he wants people to live. But we cannot have life outside God, who is the source of life.

Already in Genesis, we are led to guess that death came about because of the envy of the devil.  And the book of Wisdom states it openly: “But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are allied with him experience it.” (Wisdom 2:24)

It is interesting that, according to traditional thinking (like among the Bemba and the Kaonde peoples), God is not blamed for the death of someone. There is no natural death, and so death is always caused by someone – an enemy; and that enemy is a fellow human being, mainly a relative or a neighbour. Death is brought about by the jealousy, the envy and the hatred of someone who is close enough to harm you. Surely, following this way of thinking, many innocent people are falsely accused. However, God is never blamed for someone’s death.

In a way, the first death – the death of the body – is just a passage to other life. We fear the pain and the loss, but we can wait for it with hope. The second death, which comes with a rejection of God and an exclusion from the communion of love with God, that is the one to fear.