Welcome to Rejoicing in Mortality, the first episode of our Lent 2025 podcast series ‘The Joys of Spring.’

Lent invites us to slow down and reflect on life's deeper meaning. And to begin this journey, Bishop Martin, Bishop of Kingston, invites you to think about what it means to rejoice in our mortality.

With warmth and honesty, he discusses the emotions that come with knowing life is finite.

Through personal stories, poetry, and wisdom from Christian liturgy, he shows how faith can help us find sorrow, gratitude, and even joy in the face of death.

This week is a time to pause and think about the deeper meaning of life and listen to a message of hope this Lenten season.

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I am Bishop Martin, the Bishop of Kingston

in the Diocese of Southwark, situated

south of the River Thames in London, in

case you're wondering where Southwark is.

I've been set the rather wonderful task

of exploring whether, how, we might

rejoice in our mortality as Christians.

I say as Christian, but I make no

assumption about your faith or beliefs.

But just to say I'll be exploring today's

topic from a Christian, no doubt Anglican

perspective, as that is my heritage.

So do we rejoice in our mortality?

Can we?

Should we?

And what does the Christian

faith have to say on the matter?

As I've reflected on these questions, I've

looked at Church of England liturgies,

our authorised orders of service,

what do they say on these matters?

Particularly the funeral

service over the ages, so both

contemporary and historic liturgies.

But also material for All Saints

and All Souls Day, when Christians

remember who have gone before us.

And I've also looked at poetry.

There are some beautiful poems

exploring questions of our

mortality, death, and dying.

What I want to argue, what I want to

suggest, is that there is joy to be

had, even rejoicing as we contemplate

our mortality, or the fact that our

earthly lives will come to an end.

That part of the Christian vocation is to

come to terms with our mortality, to live

fuller, more human lives as followers of

Jesus, knowing that our lives are finite.

But this is not easy, it is

the journey of a lifetime.

And therefore there are lots of

other feelings or emotions, beyond

joy and rejoicing, surrounding our

mortality as we contemplate our end.

And that these are recognised and

understood within Christianity, as part

and parcel of what it is to be human.

Let me begin with a personal story,

something I experienced recently,

which opens up some common emotions

as we contemplate our mortality.

Recently, my wife and I had to say

goodbye to two of our children as one

set off to work in Australia, the other

set off to travel around the world.

Yes, we've reached that stage of

life, of children fleeing the nest.

And having just said goodbye to

one of my children, I turned on

the radio to find Samuel Barber's

Adagio for Strings playing.

I don't know if you know it,

it was popularised in the

film Platoon some years ago.

But the music chimed with my

mood, and I felt a deep sense of

sadness, even as I rejoiced that

my children are living their lives.

But the thought that struck me as I

listened to the music was that maybe my

temporary saying goodbye to my children

was perhaps a kind of dress rehearsal

for a much more permanent saying goodbye

at some unknown point in the future.

It also made me think of the death of

my father and how for some time I simply

could not believe he was not with us.

So while there may be ways in which we

can and should come to terms with our

mortality, and even rejoice in it, we need

to acknowledge a range of other emotions.

When my father died, a

part of me was incredulous.

This is ridiculous, I thought.

He cannot not be here.

And part of me also wanted

to rail against God.

Why?

Why, Lord, have you so ordained it?

Though this begs the question of

what the alternative might be.

So if we acknowledge, as we think

about our mortality, that there are

likely to be a range of emotions,

sadness at the prospect of separation

from our loved ones, or from

the aching beauty of the world.

Fear of the unknown,

what do we think may await us beyond

this earthly life, beyond the grave?

What we find, though, is that Christianity

acknowledges these things, seeks

to express them in its liturgies.

The 1662 Order for the Burial of the Dead

expresses the shortness of our lives thus.

Man that is born of a woman hath but a

short time to live, and is full of misery.

He cometh up and is cut

down, like a flower.

He fleeth as it were a shadow, and

never continueth in one's stay.

Or the grief of loss.

The Pastoral Introduction to the Common

Worship Funeral Service reads, even

those who share the Christian faith,

find that there is a real sense of

loss at the death of a loved one.

We will each have had our own

experiences of their life and death,

with different memories and different

feelings of love, grief and respect.

Or the pain of death itself, even

allowing for advances in medical

science and especially palliative care.

We only have to think of Jesus

on the cross to be reminded

of the agony of some deaths.

People dying in terrible

circumstances, lives cut short

before they've scarcely begun, and

doubting God at the moment of death.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Christianity acknowledges these

things, and also the pain of parting.

I think of the passage in John's

Gospel when Jesus is on the cross and

he sees his mother and the disciple

whom he loved standing next to her.

'Woman,' Jesus says, 'here is your

son,' and to the disciple, 'here is

your mother.' Profoundly moving words

as Jesus says farewell and entrusts

his mother to his disciple's care.

But is this all there is to say?

No, it's not.

And where does joy, and even

rejoicing in our mortality, fit in?

Much of our contemporary life is lived

in complete denial of our mortality.

Indeed, it's as if much of what we do,

much of what we consume, is designed

to stop us thinking about such things.

So, distracted, living life at

such a pace, moving from one thing

to the next, cramming our days.

We try and exist thinking it will

never end, in denial of our mortality.

And this is not how life is to be lived.

Is it not idolatry, to

make an idol of our lives?

Is it not sin, an attempt to live as

if we are gods, forgetting that we

are mortal, finite, from dust we have

come, and to the dust we shall return?

But living in this way, in denial of our

mortality, trying to live as if there

are no limits, is profoundly harmful.

It is harmful for ourselves,

it's not a recipe for flourishing.

It is not to acknowledge our humanity

as God has made us, our fragility,

our dependence, our impermanence.

And it's profoundly harmful to the planet

too, where a denial of limits, failing

to live within planetary boundaries, is

the cause of so much harm and degradation

that humans have wreaked on the planet.

Not to acknowledge our mortality, to

live as if there are no limits, is

to wander from how God intended it.

And there is a different way, a

better and more fulfilling way.

We cannot know exactly what awaits

us beyond this earthly life.

We know that our bodies,

including our brains, will decay.

They will not survive death.

And yet Christianity holds out a

hope that death is not the end.

That the God who loves us, made

us, knows us better than we know

ourselves, will not let us go.

The theologian Keith Ward, drawing

on Saint Paul, writes as follows.

Christians believe in the

resurrection of the body.

This is not the physical body, it is

a spiritual body in which the mental

content of individuals is embodied

in a new form beyond death and decay.

The resurrection is not in this physical

universe, Ward says, but it is in a

realm in which individuals continue

to exist in a way that extends their

experience in the physical world,

in the continuing journey into God.

And more poetically, our

liturgy is expressed as follows.

And yes, there is joy and rejoicing.

In one of the closing prayers set for

the funeral service, for instance, we

hear God will show us the path of life.

In his presence is the fullness

of joy, and at his right hand

there is pleasure forevermore.

Unto him that is able to keep us

from falling, and to present us

faultless before the presence of

his glory, with exceeding joy.

Or in the same service, in a prayer

to our compassionate and merciful God,

In your mercy, turn the darkness of

death into the dawn of new life, and

the sorrow of parting into the joy of

heaven, through our Saviour Jesus Christ.

Or, in the proper preface for the

All Souls Day Eucharist, we are

reminded of the implications for

us of Jesus' victory over death.

And now we give you thanks

through Christ Jesus, our Lord,

in him who rose from the dead.

Our hope of resurrection dawned.

The sting of death has been removed by

the glorious promise of his risen life.

So yes, we do rejoice.

We give thanks for what Jesus

has done for us, the victory

over death, won on the cross.

He has won for us a glorious victory.

We give thanks for the lives that we

live, for those who enrich our lives and

give them meaning and purpose, for the

gift of those who've gone before us, the

communion of saints, who in Christian

understanding are always very close to us.

And in faith, we rejoice in all God's

good gifts and look ahead in hope and

expectation to our eternal home that

God has prepared for those who love him.

So in the words of John

Henry Newman, let us pray.

Support us, O Lord, all the day long of

this troublous life, until the shadows

lengthen and the evening comes, the

busy world is hushed, the fever of

life is over, and our work is done.

Then, Lord, in your mercy,

grant us a safe lodging, a holy

rest, and peace at the last.

Through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Amen.