Death Be Not Proud
I love the audacity of John Donne’s poem – taking on death itself, unmasking it for what it is, challenging it in light of the resurrection. He gains his courage, I think, from the Apostle Paul, who invites Donne – and all of us – to see death along with all the other realities of this life in light of the resurrection.
Which helps orient us to the centrality of Easter to the Christian faith. Resurrection is God’s new creation, God’s response to the realities of this world, God’s answer to all that would oppress or terrify us. Not that these things – illness, disappointment, heartbreak, loneliness, and of course death – aren’t hard. They are. But they are not the last word. And Donne knows that.
My prayer for each of us during these seven weeks of Easter is not that we are spared all the heartaches of life – because that is, of course, part of what makes us appreciate the good and beautiful as well – but that we are not daunted by them, not discouraged to think they are the only reality, not cowed into shaping our lives to avoid what is difficult but rather are emboldened to look death in all of its many forms in the eye and say with Paul, with Donne, and ultimately with Christ, “Death, be not proud.”
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
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