What Happens When You Die? {Reflections}

Death comes for us all, but what follows remains shrouded in mystery. Drawing from ancient wisdom found in Ecclesiastes, we explore one of the most profound questions humans face: what happens when we die?

The Book of Ecclesiastes offers a beautiful perspective that predates even Jesus—the idea that death represents the reversal of creation itself. When God formed humans, He shaped us from dust and breathed His spirit into us. At death, this process unwinds as "the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." This imagery suggests our final breath—literally the last thing we do before dying—returns to its divine source while our bodies return to the earth.

I share how ancient funeral customs involved ritually breaking bowls, symbolizing life's end—a tradition so powerful I've asked young men in my congregation to honor it at my own funeral. We examine how this Ecclesiastes passage connects with later Christian understandings developed by Paul and early believers, who saw death as a temporary separation where the spirit communes with God while the body waits for ultimate resurrection. Though we can't know exactly what happens in those moments after death, these ancient texts offer profound comfort and hope.

If this exploration of life's greatest mystery resonates with you, consider joining us in person at Central in Elk River—either at our 8:30 liturgical gathering or 10:00 modern service. Can't make it in person? Connect with us online at clcelkriver.org and continue exploring these eternal questions together.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey, what is up everybody?
Welcome to our Reflectionspodcast.
And you know, one of the thingsI do as a pastor is I do
funerals a lot and many timespeople will ask me like like hey
, pastor, what happens when wedie?
And I will often think in myhead like something like I don't
say it out loud, but I'll thinkto myself you know what?
I don't really know, I've neverdone it before and come back

(00:37):
but I do offer them somethingelse.
There's some great thoughtsabout death and what happens
when we die in the scripturesthey're not all together super
clear, but one of my favoriteones that I sort of stumbled
upon a while ago that I love, isfrom the book of Ecclesiastes.
Now, ecclesiastes is thisancient book of wisdom, but it's
kind of the wisdom that comeslater on in life when you've
seen some stuff, when you knowthat life doesn't always work

(01:00):
out how it's supposed to workout, and sometimes you do all
the right things and the bottomstill falls out.
Sometimes you raise your kidsin the ways that you thought
were best, but the kid stillkind of becomes a knucklehead,
and so Ecclesiastes has thisdeep, profound wisdom that is
kind of the end of an age wisdom.
Who's seen all these wonderfulthings?
So anyway, in Ecclesiastes 12,there's this moment where he

(01:24):
says sort of simply hey.
So at the end here of thisincredibly profound book, I want
to tell you hey, remember yourcreator.
And this is Ecclesiastes 12.
And remember, you know, in thedays of your youth, before the
days of trouble come.
Then he goes on down in verse 7.
I love this.
He says actually in verse 6, hesays remember, remember him,
your creator, before the silvercord is severed and the golden

(01:47):
bowl is broken.
And I learned that, like youknow, in these ancient funeral
rites they would smash thesebowls during the funeral.
And so I was reading thischapter with some young guys,
some young men, and I go listenyou guys, if I die before you
guys, I want you to come to myfuneral.
These are young dudes, right,they have that young man energy.
Come to my funeral with somebowls, just smash them on my
casket and walk out Like don'tsay a word, just walk in and

(02:10):
smash these bowls and then justwalk out.
I love it.
So they told me they would.
So it says before the pitcheris shattered at the spring and
the wheel broken at the well,and then he says this and before
, the dust returns to the groundthat it came from and the
Spirit returns to God who gaveit, and then he goes on to say
that life is vapor, it's hereand then gone, but I love it.

(02:31):
Now.
This is obviously before Jesus,way before Jesus, and so this
idea of resurrection hasn'treally become rooted in the
Jewish psyche yet.
But there's a sense that, hey,he believed.
When you die, the writer ofEcclesiastes thought that when
you died, that, hey, he believed.
When you die, the writer ofEcclesiastes thought that when
you died, that your body wouldgo into the ground, which is
often what we do with thingsthat die.

(02:52):
We plant them in the ground andthe spirit, or the breath, or
the wind, the soul, goes back toGod from where it came.
And now this is really cool,because this is actually an
undoing of the creation story.
In the creation, god of coursetakes the dirt, the ground, and
he breathes his spirit, hisbreath, his wind into the dirt
and it becomes alive, it becomesa human.
And so in Ecclesiastes you havethe reversal of that, where,

(03:13):
when you die, those thingsbecome separated once again and
the body goes back into the dirtfrom where it came, and the
spirit, the soul, the wind, andthe soul, the wind and the
breath, which is the last thingthat leaves the body the breath.
The last thing you will ever dobefore you die is to breathe
out.
So there's this breath thatgoes back to God.
The soul, the spirit, thebreath goes back to God, from

(03:33):
which it came, and I love that.
It's this idea that, look, thebody goes into the ground and
this thing that enlivened yougoes to be with God, and what
that looks like, I have no idea,I don't know.
Paul writes later on.
Of course, this is many yearslater.
Paul, who's certainlyinfluenced by Greek thinking,
says that to be absent from thebody or to be away from the body
is to be present with the Lord.

(03:54):
So there's some part of us,like the author of Ecclesiastes
is saying, there's some part ofus that goes to be with God and
there's an interaction there, orsomething like that.
And then, of course, theybelieved the early Christians
that the body would go into theground and then wait for the
resurrection.
That would happen to all of usat one time, and it happened in
Jesus, which was like aforetaste or a hint of what was

(04:16):
to come for all of us, but thatwe wait for the resurrection in
this time of restful peace.
And so there you go.
I don't know what happens whenwe die exactly, but I think it's
something like that that whenwe die, our breath, our spirit,
our soul, the wind in us goesback to God from where it came
and the body goes into theground from where it came, and
we wait for the resurrectionthat Jesus promises.

(04:38):
So there you go.
That's the hope.
All right, love you guys, peace.
Hey, if you enjoy this show,I'd love to have you share it
with some friends.
And don't forget, you arealways welcome to join us in
person at Central in Elk Riverat 830, which is our liturgical
gathering, or 10 o'clock, ourmodern gathering, or you can

(05:01):
check us out online atclcelkriverorg.
Peace.