Jack Kevorkian, aka 'Dr. Death', died last week, and I feel like there should be a Christion response. While I wait to hear from our leaders, I am wondering what that response should be.
Jack Kevorkian was not a good man. He assisted in the suicides of 130 people, lethally injecting two of him himself. Most believe that he was simply helping the terminally ill have a say over how they would die. Many even consider him a hero for this. However, at least 70 percent of the people he helped commit suicide did not have a terminal illness, and, according to their autopsies, at least five were not sick at all. He was very much into macabre experimentation. He leaves a legacy of pro suicide and pro death ideology; he taught us that death could be the answer for suffering. No, Dr. Kevorkian was not a good man.
Truth be told, there's no such thing as a good man or woman. Romans says none are righteous, not one. We've all sinned. Consequently, we will all taste death, save for those who will be living at Christ's return. But even those who will be alive on that Day have experienced the sting of death, in there own physical and spiritual suffering. In losing loved ones to death. Death and sin and pain and suffering are as braided together as my hair used to be in the mornings before school. Kevorkian would have us believe that one (death) is the answer for the others (pain and suffering). However, the Good News of the Gospel is that Christ makes an end to suffering by conquering death. In HIS death and resurrection, he not only conquered death and Satan, He reconciled us to the Father Who forgives our sin through Christ's work and will bring us to His side, free of suffering, when our tired, sinful, old bodies wear out.
As Christians, we must not agree with the hopelessness of suicide. We see suffering all around us. We long to relieve it. Instead of agreeing with the hopeless- because in the hopeless mind, weary from pain, thinking is not clear- we must bring the suffering and the hurting to the Savior, Who gives eternal LIFE.
Kevorkian was no worse of a sinner than I. Without the grace of God, I very much could be spouting the same twisted logic. This is why we do not turn internally into our wicked human hearts for answers to human suffering. Now, answer we must- but it must be from our ultimate Authority- the Word of God, Who is Christ Himself.
