Should believers fear death?

It was composed and sung many decades ago by Jim Reeves. The song, This world is not my home, continues to touch and soothe lives of many people across the globe.

From the lyrics one can speculate that Reeves composed the song after going through a life-threatening experience such as a serious illness and was now ready to face the reality of death.

The hymn features in churches and during funerals specifically to stress that people should not grumble over the death of our beloved ones because they have simply returned to their home: heaven.

That is why some church elders advise bereaved families to mourn their dead mindful that God has called their beloved ones to rule with Him in paradise.

But why do Christians, and indeed any other believer, fear death if their religion aims at securing them a place in paradise?

In his response to a questionnaire posted on Facebook, Daniel Acha Mwenechanya defines death as the ultimate unknown and says humans have the tendency to fear what they do not understand.

Mwenechanya said this is the reason every culture personifies death in an attempt to give it a more comprehensible definition.

“We have difficulties to differentiate between the person and the body. We are physical creatures and our [rather distorted] understanding of death is largely limited to the physical evidence—corpses.

“When a thing that, in our minds, was once a person and is now an inanimate [and sometimes decaying or bloodied] object, it frightens us to think that we will go through similar experience,” he said.

But Mwenechanya believes that not all people fear death, saying some see it as a necessary graduation from the physical to spiritual form.

A Lilongwe-based journalist, Fountain Kamanga, said although death is a “gateway to paradise for the righteous, the flesh fears because surrendering to it without a struggle is inherently unnatural.”

Kamanga said it is good that people retain their instinctive fear of death because they have work for God’s kingdom to do in this world.

A believer based in Mzuzu, Tiwonge Botha, said life is precious and that this is the reason even Jesus Christ did not want to die.

“Jesus Christ feared death even though he knew he was going straight into paradise,” said Botha.

Reverend Bannet Zimba of Mabiri CCAP Church in Mzimba agreed with the two, arguing that believers’ fear of death is justified because humans were not originally created to experience death.

Zimba said people were created for life and death is a process that came as the result of sin.

“This is according to Genesis 3:19 and I quote: ‘By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return,’” he said.

The reverend said the fear of death is vital in keeping with religious norms as it prevents man from being fanatical in pursuit of death to avoid facing the serious problems this world presents.

“This, in essence, means that although we have a beautiful home up yonder, we also have roles and responsibilities to undertake here on earth in glorifying the Kingdom of God,” said Zimba.