In the Christian community, we are regularly confronted with the brokenness of life.
This demands much pastoral attention, and this is a good thing. We also get to deal with the end of life, and that too demands much pastoral attention. Sometimes, a death is extremely difficult to process, due to illness, or due to the (young) age, and also… in the case of someone taking their own life, often reflected with the word suicide.
Do I make a mistake when I pose that by using this word, we show our embarrassment with it? (that is, using “suicide” as a euphemism for ‘killing yourself’).

Embarrassed⤒🔗

From of old, the passing of someone who took his own life is reason for great consternation for those left behind, and among the fellowship of the Christian congregation. The person called to pastorally guide the immediate and extended family (in most cases) after such a traumatic event cannot bypass this consternation.

The one question tumbles over the next question. The pastor, who often deals with the first reactions, and who is asked to lead the funeral service, and who looks after the pastoral care after a moving and scarred week, but also the ward elder, and the congregation members who surround the family after what happened—all are called to spiritually support the family.

And they can be embarrassed about it: “What are we to say? How can we find the words to pray?”

How can it be that a (confessing or baptised) member of the congregation comes to such a drastic and definitive act?

The Bible←⤒🔗

Whoever wants to be pastor, then, will search for words. For those words to reach their goal, they will have to be grounded in Scripture and in the framework that comes forth from Scripture. How else could we spiritually support those who are grieving?

One of the questions that comes to the surface is “Will someone who committed this act be allowed to enter the Kingdom of God? Now, we all know very well that we do not have the last word in these matters, and that is a good thing. There is one Judge of the people who have lived on earth. His is the judgement, and no one else’s.

It is not for us to say here on earth with great certainty that someone would be lost. We are much too limited for this. Who do we think we are?

And yet, not all has been said with this, and everyone knows that, for in Scripture, the Lord gives clear answers to the question of who is welcome at the great wedding feast with Him. They are those who—let’s keep it simple—have come to the foot of the cross, and there, upon having confessed their sins, have received forgiveness of their sins. They are those who have “received Christ” (see John 1:12): “He gave the right to become children of God to all who believed in his name.”

Add to this the fact that in Scripture several times it speaks about people who kill themselves. And the people who commit this act are not known to us in a positive way. I will name them: Saul (and his armor-bearer) in 1 Samuel 31:4-5; Ahithophel in 2 Samuel 17:23; Zimri in 1 Kings 16:18; and Judas in Matthew 27:3-5; there are no others whom we know of from Scripture. These five people took the power over death in their own hands. And one cannot minimize it, for it is a sin, a transgression of the sixth commandment. Life is in God’s hands, and no one may take the authority over life from his hands. This means that one cannot take the life of another person, but also not take their own life. The Heidelberg Catechism (q/a 105) says this:“I am not to harm or recklessly endanger myself.”

The biblical examples mentioned above have brought some office-bearers to sometimes speak very harsh words about those who committed suicide: “There is no hope of eternal life.”

At Roman Catholic cemeteries, there is a separate, unconsecrated place for these people.

And up till today in our own church circles one may hear the echo in pastoral conversations of what was once put down in a very strict manner. It mars people for life…

But let us look at these four people from Scripture more carefully, and let us ask whether they, due to their act of taking their own lives, were lost:

• Saul: He came to this deed, after, as becomes clear from the preceding chapters, he had already clearly torn himself away from God’s hand, and as a low point wanting to call up Samuel from the dead (1 Samuel 28).
• Ahithophel: He did an evil thing together with Absalom during his revolt against king David, who was chosen by God, and so turned his hand against the anointed of the Lord, thus entering a path which was explicitly against God’s commandments.
• Zimri, perhaps the least known: Of him it is said, as he committed suicide, that “he… died, because of his sins that he committed, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam, and for his sin which he committed, making Israel to sin” (1 Kings 16).
• Judas: He comes to betray the Saviour, and therefore he is an unfaithful disciple.

Conclusion and question←⤒🔗

From this short analysis, it may become clear that before these four persons committed suicide, they lived in a way that was very much against the Lord and his commandment. During their lives, they already show themselves as having left the Lord. And whoever moves away from God…

So, when questions are asked then about their eternal destiny, then these questions may not be asked based on the single fact that they killed themselves, but these questions must be asked against the background of the total development of their life!

But how does this work in the concrete practice of the congregation? I have experienced several funerals where suicide was involved. But without exception, it was about members of the congregation who could in no way be compared to the four persons described above.

You will, when you have experienced it, recognize this: that often it happens in situations of severe (manic or not) depression, or with schizophrenia. Others have already often, and quite intensively tried to support the brother or sister, spiritually, with psychological assistance, and yet…, in the end they can fall from our hands. But do they also then fall from God’s hands?

Once, during a funeral service where suicide had happened, I compared this very tragic event (which also had an enormous impact in the neighbourhood) with the feared illness of cancer.

Often, and fortunately this happens more and more, there are ways to drive this illness back, or even to be healed from it, but not all the time, for at times this illness overpowers man, and then the person dies.

It is this way with physical ailments, and it is this way with mental ailments as well, as often, with God’s blessing and professional help the illness can be driven back, but… sometimes this mental illness overpowers the person, and it will cost a person’s life.

In this broken world, this also happens among God’s children.

And so, in pastoral assistance, we come to reading other portions of Scripture: for example, Psalm 40:12-17 or Psalm 139:7-12.

And, aside from these notations, who can look into the last moments of someone’s life? Like the murderer on the cross was saved for eternity in the nick of time, and yet he had to die, would a last cry for help during suicide not be heard by the Lord, even though death still happens?

And would then the words of Romans 8:38-39 possess no power, that “neither death nor life… will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?” Surely, these words may be carefully mentioned, but it is already great gain, when we can place behind us the negative certainty we have seen for many years with this theme.

We know so little←⤒🔗

The longer one is involved in pastoral work (by pastors, other office bearers, visits to pastors), the more one realizes how little we know about God’s work in someone’s life. And the more we also realize that we need to read the Bible with great care; not too hastily and not too little of it, in order to foster true spiritual development and comfort in people’s lives. But by doing that, we perhaps arrive at a good spot spiritually. Then the Spirit can assist us, after all; then we know that we need help. Then the Lord can use us in his service in this extremely difficult area.

And then there will be many questions. Some of them are made in the pastoral conversation by  the surviving marriage partner who remains, by children and grandchildren, by neighbours, by members of the congregation. And then there will be many more questions, which have not been asked yet, but which live in the hearts of people.

Accompanying congregation members who have experienced death in this gruesome manner is truly very difficult.

Let us surely not make a secret here of our awkwardness, and not use any words that are too big for the moment.

To be quiet says more than words can at certain times. And then let us open the Bible with our hands folded.