Dying to Live

A Reflection on the Psalm for August 7th, 2022
​Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Psalm 33

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen as his heritage.

Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage. R.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen as his heritage.

Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, to deliver their souls from death, and to keep them alive in famine. R.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen as his heritage.

Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield. Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. R.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen as his heritage.

I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about death lately. Not that I have any sign of trying to shake off this mortal coil (unless there’s a bus with my name on it lurking around the corner). But I’ve had plenty of other things directing a thoughtful gaze at death. My mother passed away 7 years ago this summer. My husband has been defying death daily with the help of an ever-growing team of healthcare professionals. People I care about have been fighting their own fights. The elders of my childhood have begun passing away. 


In addition, I am part of a team working to produce a video series on death and dying as we understand it as Christians. Our team has spent the past few months listening to and learning from experts. Every person who is speaking in the videos has a profound faith and has spent time thinking about death. Regardless of their background, each person has highlighted something critical for all of us as Christians – our hope in Christ. That hope is grounded in what the Scriptures teach us and what Christ said about Himself.


This Psalm reminds us of the hope we have in the Lord, in feast and fallow. Our God has chosen us as His heritage. His love is steadfast. He delivers our souls from death. He feeds us body and soul. He is our help and shield.


Our hope is that God is who He says He is. Our trust is in His faithfulness. Our yearning is to be with Him. The Lord invites us to live in confidence of these truths. 


Our relationship with death is still complicated. It’s still scary. We avoid it wherever we can. We do not want to go gentle into that good night. We rage. That’s a natural consequence of the Fall. We know that the wages of sin is death. So we resist. 


But Christ has transformed death through His life, death, and resurrection. We still must endure death, just as He did. That means suffering, loss, and grief. Our humanity is not erased through Christ’s grace. What has changed is the consequence of death. Death is not the end. Suffering is not meaningless. Christ has taken the bitterness of death and transformed the consequence of our sin into a moment of transition into eternal life. Death has no final dominion.


Our hope rests in that knowledge. Christ conquered death and as adopted children of God, He conquers death for us too. In this life, how we approach suffering, dying and death are transformed. In aligned our hearts with Christ, suffering with and through Him, and seeking the grace of the Lord through the Holy Spirit, we can allow ourselves to embrace the dying process with healed hearts.


So we praise Him as children made righteous through His righteousness. We rejoice in His faithfulness and steadfast love. He delivers our souls form death and gives us His life.




Stephanie Potter
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