In humanity, the fear of death prevails, turning into a thoughtless and submissive acceptance of its inevitability.

But there is often a petrified insensibility and not only a fear of death, but also a fear even of thinking about it. Those who drive away the thought of death cannot, of course, religiously prepare themselves for the inevitable outcome. The memory of death is considered by the holy teachers and ascetics of Christianity to be as necessary for a person as prayer for spiritual life. They say that prayer is the "right wing" of the soul of a believer, and the "left wing" is the memory of the exodus from this world.

The wrong idea is often expressed in the world that the memory of death hinders the passage of earthly life, as if it "inhibits" the activity of man in the world. This can only be attributed to the worldly hypochondriacal attitude to death, which makes a person really incapable of any work. The Christian memory of death is a clairvoyant state of the human soul, and makes it more conscious and wise, giving man's activity in the world a special strength and responsibility.

The ancient pagan society at first suspected Christians of wrong feelings in relation to the life of this world, but when they looked closely, they saw their mistake. Christians could give to the land everything that was intended for the land, in the order of state service and public service. But only to God and eternity did Christians give their souls.

Christianity has never contradicted life, but only sin. The memory of death – of which the teachers of the Church speak – does not contradict the activity of life, but the activity of sin. The sinful feeling really hates the memory of death because it is also the memory of the retribution for sin, of the end of all illusions, the mirages of evil, its illusory joys, with which evil seduces the human soul on earth, distracting it from God and His truth.

What is "death"? Is it evil or good? Some will say, "evil," others, "good." The truth is that death as man's departure from one reality, earthly, into another, heavenly, being a consequence of evil, is in itself neither good nor evil; for some people, good, believers, it is "good" and beneficence, and for others, who have not repented before God, it is "evil", sorrow. The quality of the soul of a dying person determines the meaning of death for it.

The Word of God understands death not only in the sense of man's parting with his earthly body, but also in the sense of man's loss of God's grace. This last, absolutely horrible death is the death of the soul, or, as the Apocalypse says, "the second death" – death to righteousness, to purity, to bliss, to goodness – eternal life in God. But this death has no power where souls are saved and transfigured by the power of Christ. "Death and hell have given up the dead" (Rev. 20:13).

The holiest and highest death of man is his death to evil, to sin. Death for death itself... A person dies in order not to die anymore... He who is resurrected in Christ is a man who died to evil. Death in the world was the result of man's falling away from God, a consequence of sin. And when sin is destroyed, in genuine repentance, and in God's forgiveness of man, then the sting is also taken out of death... That is why St. John Chrysostom exclaims so solemnly and joyfully in his famous Paschal Sermon: "Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is your victory?!"

The "sting" was taken out of human death by the resurrection of Christ. And all those who are faithful to Christ, all who live with Him and in Him, are sons of the resurrection.

Human Weakness and Strength

The Apostle James addressed people who were too self-confident in their human plans:

"Now listen to you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and dwell there one year, and we will trade and make a profit'; you who do not know what will happen tomorrow: for what is your life? A vapor that appears for a short time, and then disappears. Instead of saying to you: "If the Lord wills, and we live, we will do this or that," you, in your arrogance, are vain: all such vanity is evil" (James 4:13-16).

It would seem that this is an absolutely indisputable truth, verified by the experience of every person and every day: life on earth is "vapor that appears for a short time." Is it possible to build a life on this "couple" too prudently? Steam does not last long, just like earthly life. However, human calculations are usually carried out in this way. In the firm conviction of his strength and steadfastness, man builds his life, struggles, plans, not seeing all his precariousness in the world, dependence on unforeseen circumstances, and behind them, always and in everything, from God. God is the master of visible and invisible being, present and future (which is already the invisible world for us). We humans are so often "vain" in our plans and intentions! And instead of saying, as the Apostle advises: "If it pleases the Lord, and we are alive, we will do this or that," we immediately, peremptorily and self-confidently say that we will definitely do this, that we will build and accomplish, that we will certainly conquer and overcome...

"All such vanity is evil"; for by it we seek to remove the Lord God from the world; and since the Lord God is the true Master of all things, we deprive ourselves of his help and blessing. Yes, too often people express this unfounded idea that their lives, success, and fortune depend only on themselves; And many in the world even boast about it. But such views are constantly crumbling before the eyes of the whole world: "unexpected" diseases are attacking people; natural disasters, earthquakes, wars, from which everyone suffers; the rapid destruction of seemingly well-established families and entire societies, proud ruling parties and powerful states; "premature" (as people say) deaths, come upon humanity, regardless of the age of people, and a stream of people pours over the edge of this world into eternity. Generation after generation disappears, and the history of past centuries remains like a dream, sometimes like the nightmare of humanity; old and young people go into the unknown distance, leave unexpectedly for others, among their plans and begun affairs... The logic of human calculations is collapsing all the time. And there are no calculations by means of which it would be possible to foresee the future hour and day of each person. The life of all is preserved only in the Providence of the Creator, and the limits of each are determined only by Him.