Death is a necessary sequel to life - in this world, at least. Even if people are maturing earlier, remaining active longer, living to a statistically greater age, it is inevitable that none of us can physically last for ever. The earth would overflow with people (and why just people - why not dogs, cabbage plants and mosquitoes as well?) What we learn in school about the food chain is echoed by God's words to Adam: "You are dust; to dust you shall return."
Even if it is unavoidable, death is nonetheless distressing, for our relationships with other people are part of ourselves, and if those people are no more, we lose part of ourselves. The kind of relationships we enjoy on earth are quite different from any relationship beyond this life, where, for example, people "neither marry nor are married" (Mark 12:25), and coming to terms with this is always difficult.
But death is even more distressing when it is untimely. What can we say to the mother of a three-year-old child who lived a perfectly normal babyhood before succumbing to fits and turning into a human vegetable? Or to the relations of someone in their forties who has a seizure for no apparent reason and dies? To the friends of those who die from cancer, or in a sudden accident?
The first thing to remember is that God is never absent. And that the psalmist's prayer: "Hide me in the shadow of your wings" (Ps 17:8) is a valid request in times of difficulty. But God is not there to pull strings and preserve car drivers from accidents. Despite what we may or may not believe about 'intelligent design', our bodies may well be wonderful, but they are not perfect - not that with our human level of understanding, we have any clear idea of what 'perfect' means.
Another thing to remember is that it is seldom (if ever) useful to allot blame for a death. Jesus prayed from the Cross: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do". He said a decisive "No" to the idea that the workers killed in a contemporary building disaster were worse sinners than those around them (Luke 13:4) Even though he raised the dead, and in his resurrection showed that in God's sight death has been conquered, his attitude was of sympathy and solidarity, not of condemnation.
God is indeed present at every stage in life, and in death. For God works through people, and is present in the neighbour who offers a supporting hand, in the doctor and the nurse who work to heal and to comfort, in all who sympathize or try to understand. God does not manipulate the world around us to suit our own individual wishes, for omnipotence is not about sending bolts of lightning to punish evildoers, nor about curing some and leaving others to their fate - it is about giving us all strength to cope with the suffering of the world. It is about enabling us all to serve and support others.
If God is present in the hand that reaches out to comfort and support, it follows that we all, who are made in God's image, need to reach out, to comfort and support our neighbours, even when it is hard to do so. When sickness, misfortune or death come, we are right to ask why - if only to stop it happening again, perhaps to others. But we are not called to offer a theodicy - a justification or an explanation of how this fits, or does not fit, people's ideas of God's goodness and mercy. We are called to do God's work in wiping away the tears from people's eyes, and sharing their loss and their grief, just as Jesus, 'the man of sorrows', stands beside us all and points our own way forward - the way we pass this Lent, through the Cross and onwards to a truer life, a life of joy and peace.
HD