End of life

https://odb.org/2025/11/18/living-with-christ

2 Timothy 2:8–13 (NIV): 8 Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David. This is my gospel, 9 for which I am suffering even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But God’s word is not chained. 10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory.
11 Here is a trustworthy saying:  if we died with him, we will also live with him; 12 if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us; 13 if we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.

Physician Christian Ntizimira sensed God’s calling to provide end-of-life care in under-resourced areas of his home country of Rwanda. Colleagues often didn’t see the value of such care because “these patients were already considered hopeless.” But Ntizimira found that for patients and their families, his “presence offered a rekindling of hope when all seemed lost.” Ntizimira is grounded in his work by the conviction that Jesus’ death and life can transform how we approach death because “the death of Christ is the source of life.” (Monica La Rose, Our Daily Bread, 18 November 2025)

I think the point on providing end-of-life care or hospice services is that life is to be respected and cherished even at its end stages. Every living creature will face this situation due to the original sin. Our human body will one day die and perish and as the saying goes, from dust to dust – from dust we come (taken from God created man from soil) to dust we return (since once fully decomposed we become a part of the soil).

Life is to be respected and dignified even when we are about to pass because life doesn’t really end when we leave the land of the living. Our soul and spirit lives on. There is life after death. If we are with the Lord, we will be with Him in heaven. But if we had rejected Him, we will be condemned to hell. That’s the hard truth and reality taught by the Bible and it doesn’t change even if one does not believe in it.

Every single one of us is to be loved and cherished because we are living beings, not because of our usefulness to others or what we can bring to the table. We have spirit, soul and body even if we are useless to everyone lying immobile on the bed due to a terminal illness having ravished us or our minds have been lost to dementia. We were once someone who did our best for our family, church and community.

That is why hospice services are important even though the patients are practically gone. That is also why funeral services form an integral part of the church. We want to give the departed a proper farewell and burial even though they are no longer with us. Jesus’s death and resurrection ensure that we will live even though we die (John 11:25) as Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life!

For us who are still breathing, let’s have a meaningful life serving God at our family, workplace, in our church and community. Let’s strive on in our faith. Leave a mark so that others may remember who we were in Christ.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:1-2). “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7).