Final Healing

As a hospice chaplain I am around death on a daily basis. In my experience I once witnessed a man discuss his daughters death at the age of 18 as her "final healing". Now, understanding the need to see things from a standpoint that allows us to better deal with reality I thought this term "final healing" was just a word of comfort.

Then as I was at the bedside of a patient in their final hours I found myself reading the following passage from Revelation 21:1-7

Rev. 21:1-7 (NRSV)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

"See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; 4he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away." 5And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6Then he said to me, "It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 7Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

After reading these words to my patient it dawned on me, could death really be a final healing. A place where suffering that we gained as a result of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, would be no longer. Could it be that death is not a punishment but a rescue from our God so that we would not experience an eternal life of suffering but rather an eternal life of healing. Just something to think about.