The French existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once wrote: “It is old age, rather than death, that is to be contrasted with life. Old age is life’s parody.”1 In her eyes, old age robbed humanity of the things which make life worth living, to the point where it is inferior to death itself. She continued: “The vast majority of mankind looks upon the coming of old age with sorrow and rebellion. It fills them with more aversion than death itself.”
Her views are entirely in keeping with our society which sees old age as something to be staved off, rather than celebrated as it might be elsewhere in the world. Western attitudes towards aging are predominantly negative. The geriatrician Louise Aronson records the results of a survey where
people were asked what words they would associate with ‘old’: the most popular answers were “sad,” “stubborn,” or “lonely”.2
We long to stay young; the anti-aging messaging which fuels the beauty industry implies, in effect, that old age means ugliness. We witness resentment from young people towards their elders who vote a different way at election time. We receive the subliminal - and occasionally, open - message that the lives of people who are closer to death are more expendable: during the Covid-19 pandemic, at least one NHS trust put in place a blanket ‘do-notresuscitate’ order, for patients of a certain age or who had a disability, without getting
their consent.3
In a world where physical boundaries are being pushed ever further by scientific advances, and in which life expectancies continue to reach new heights, what once would have been regarded as a ripe old age has now become an expected norm. By 2040, it is estimated that 25% of the population will be over the age of 65.4 The UK has yet to fully adapt to this new reality, with live debates around retirement ages, social care and end-of-life care for an increasingly aging population.
But perhaps this is the biggest problem of them all: our society is missing a positive vision of aging.
A better story for old age
Currently, it feels that to be old is to be defined by what you no longer are, rather than what you are now: you are no longer beautiful, young, or physically active; you no longer have a job and you are no longer productive; you no longer can live on your own; instead, the world says, it is an inexorable, and sometimes painful, road to death and oblivion, the ultimate ‘no longer’.
Not all of this is entirely false, although some of it is; and of course, one person’s experience of being elderly can differ substantially from that of another who is the same age, with people going through different rates of physical decline, or having different experiences of loneliness, or dependency or bereavement.
The Bible has an ambiguous relationship with aging, fully recognising its problems and its pains, rather than just its positives. God’s word is - as in so many areaswonderfully and bluntly realistic about the world we inhabit. For many people, old age is hard. Within Scripture, people fear it. The Psalmist begs God in Psalm 71:9: “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone.” Paul describes the aging process as “wasting away” (2 Corinthians 4:16), and when he is close to death, says that he is “being poured out like a drink offering” (2 Timothy 4:6).
Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 provides a particularly graphic description of the aging process. The writer says that we will say about our later years, “I find no pleasure in them”, and describes them as the “days of trouble.” He
describes how old age affects virtually every part of our physical being: “the keepers of the house tremble” (our arms and legs begin to shake), and “the strong men stoop” (we are hunched over with bad backs), “the grinders cease because they are few” (our teeth fall out and we lose the function to chew), and “those looking through the windows grow dim” (our eyesight deteriorates). The elderly live in fear (“people are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets”), struggle with walking (“the grasshopper drags itself along”), lose sexual desire (“desire no longer is stirred”), and eventually die (“then people go to their eternal home”).
Faced with such a bleak view of aging, we might well wonder how the apostle Paul could say “I can endure all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13). And yet contentment within our circumstances is a part of Christian living; he writes the verse before: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”
Indeed, elsewhere in Paul’s writings, we see him encourage Christians to not only be content in their circumstances, but to embrace them and not seek to change them: in 1 Corinthians 7, he tells believers that “each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them” (1 Corinthians 7:17), whether they be circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, or married or unmarried.
So what is the secret to this contentment? If the Christian worldview recognises the pain of aging and declares it an evil, what is the better story we can tell to our society about what old age can look like?
Here are five key plot points in the story where a Christian vision and the secular vision come into conflict:
Dignity: contrary to the perception that you only have dignity if you can perform certain actions, we believe that the lives of those who are elderly are worth just as much as those who are young, regardless of infirmity or mental capacity.
Purpose: at a time when people have moved out of employment, some may feel a loss of identity and purpose, but we believe those who are elderly can still be fruitful, and particularly want to listen to their wisdom.
Community: although many who are elderly might feel isolated, particularly if they have been bereaved, we believe that the Church has a vital role to play in ensuring that everyone is cared for and feels loved.
Suffering: many people fear suffering in their old age, but we believe in a worldview which not only gives an account for the existence of suffering, but also gives us wisdom as to how we can live in response.
Hope: as people move closer to death, many will believe they are destined for nothingness, but we believe that there is a future for all those who put their trust in Jesus, as we look towards the day on which tears are wiped away and all things are made new.
Dignity
In our Western capitalist society, we have been taught to value things like freedom, productivity and efficiency; for many, identity comes in their jobs, their talents, or the lifestyle they lead, all things which tend to disappear within old age. This canfor some - lead to going through an identity crisis and feeling like they are a burden. Others are accused of living in the past, or try to desperately cling to their old way of living.
John Swinton exposes the problems with this in his book about dementia: “When the world forgets its Creator, we begin to think we are the creators; we begin to believe that we are self-creating beings whose task is to shape the world into our own image. In such a worldview, our capacity to do things becomes primary. Unlike God, we demand that people have gifts instead of recognizing that in fact they are gifts.”5
Humans are - without exception - created in the image of God: “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). This is not something
which is lost in the fall; instead, it is a repeated refrain in the early chapters of Genesis, appearing in Chapter 5 and Chapter 9. The Bible explicitly says that it has implications for how we are to treat one another: being made in the image of God is given as grounds for not taking human life (Genesis 9:6).
These verses in Genesis were an inspiration for the civil rights movement, and for those advocating on behalf of female equality. They should equally apply for those advocating on behalf of the elderly. They show that our value and our dignity do not come from anything we do ourselves, or any abilities we may or may not any longer possess. They come from something - or rather someone - outside ourselves, and are intrinsic to our make-up.
To bear the divine image means, amongst other things, that we all reflect some part of God’s own being ourselves. It is a status unique to human beings: no other part of creation is gifted it. And it is a status given to everyone, regardless of the physical or mental state they are in, and which is
unchanging, even amid the ever-changing seasons of life.
This is a very different story about human dignity from the one the secular world tells us. For the very old, in particular, healthcare challenges and the inability to look after oneself can seem to rob people of their dignity. The loss of basic bodily functions - from walking to incontinence - feels understandably degrading. This is something which has been been capitalised on by the pro-euthanasia lobby; it is not without reason that the most wellknown campaign group advocating for its introduction in the United Kingdom is called ‘Dignity in Dying’.
This challenge feels particularly acute for people suffering with dementia. Increasingly prevalent in society (NHS England estimates that 1 in 3 people will care for a dementia sufferer in their lifetime), dementia can rob people of awareness of the world
around them, including recognising their friends and family, and even occasionally forgetting who they themselves are. As dementia worsens, people can in turn begin to see sufferers as sub-human. Although this is often unwittingly done by friends, families, and caregivers, some more radical philosophers of ‘personhood theory’, such as Peter Singer, claim that humans have no inherent right-to-life if they lack abilities such as rationality, autonomy, and selfconsciousness. Needless to say, when the rubber hit the road, Singer himself put his own mother in a care home until her life reached its natural end.
But human worth and dignity is not a question of feelings or perception: in short, ‘I don’t feel dignified, I am dignified’. It is a fixed status which holds regardless of age and stage. The author GK Chesterton once wrote: “People are equal in the same way pennies are equal. Some are bright, others are dull; some are worn smooth,
“But human worth and dignity is not a question of feelings or perception: in short, ‘I don’t feel dignified, I am dignified’.”
others are sharp and fresh. But all are equal in value, for each penny bears the image of the sovereign; each person bears the image of the King of Kings.”6
A higher status is more difficult to imagine: the Creator of the Universe and the Lord of Life has put something of Himself within each one of us. Indeed, the person who is experiencing the loss of bodily functions, or who cannot remember what they used to, still reflects God more than anything else in the universe. As CS Lewis puts it in his Chronicles of Narnia, “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve. And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth.”7
Purpose
Our society does not currently offer a coherent vision for what to do in old age. On the one hand, the world we live in feels very utilitarian, so that if elderly people feel like they have nothing to offer society, they sometimes feel worthless and like they are a drain. Others might still want to contribute, but do not feel like they are wanted: 37% of over 65s say they have experienced ageist discrimination; 76% feel the country does not make use of their talents.8
On the other, the world presents a vision for retirement that is entirely self-seeking. JI Packer sums this message up well: “You are off the treadmill and out of the rat race. Now, at last, you are your own man (or woman) and can concentrate on having fun. You have your pension: health services are there to look after your body; and clubs, trips, outings, tours, competitions, games, parties, and entertainments are provided in abundance to help you pass the time.”9
It is true, of course, that our bodies slow down and wear out, and we are not able to do all the things we might have been able to do while we were younger. As Packer himself
said when he was very old, “God doesn’t call us to do what is no longer within our power to do.”10 But that does not mean that the elderly have nothing to offer: they still need to “finish the race” (2 Timothy 4:7).
The modern West is actually an outlier in elevating youth as a virtue, rather than experience. Elsewhere in the world, the elderly are treated with far more respect. Even within the West itself, it has not always been as it is now: within Ancient Rome, for example, the young were distrusted as overly passionate and unwise, and age requirements were introduced for holding public office. Tom Holland explains: “The portraiture of the Republic suggests a positive relish for wrinkles, thinning hair and sagging jowls. It was no coincidence that the traditional ruling body of Rome, the Senate, derived its name from ‘senex’ - ‘old man’ - nor that senators liked to dignify themselves with the title of ‘Fathers’”.11
The Bible sees old age as something to be celebrated, rather than just pitied. Different ages have their different strengths: “The glory of young men is their strength, gray
hair the splendor of the old.” (Proverbs 20:29). The elderly are to be respected: Paul instructs younger people, when correcting old men, to treat them as fathers rather than rebuking them harshly, and similarly, to treat old women as mothers (1 Timothy 5:1-2). There is a particular emphasis on old age bringing experience and wisdom: as Job asks, “Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?” Indeed, this emphasis on wisdom and respect probably lies behind the use of the word ‘elder’ to describe those in church leadership.
the word ‘old’, responses to the word ‘elder’ were far more positive, including “respect,” “leader,” “experience,” “power,” or “money”.12
The Bible firmly counteracts the idea that you cannot bear fruit in old age. Rather, we read of the righteous: “They will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green, proclaiming, “The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him” (Psalm 92:14-15).
“Regardless of your age, the Bible tells us, you still have something to offer: God can still use you, no matter what the world thinks.”
The experience of the elderly is something on which we should lean today far more readily than we do. Although there can sometimes be a perception among young people that - in today’s world - elderly people need to educate themselves, people do still believe they can provide helpful wisdom and experience. Interestingly, in Louise Aronson’s previously referenced study, which saw such negative responses to
There is no age at which we are forced to stop bearing fruit. This is perhaps most famously seen in the lives of Simeon and Anna: Simeon has been waiting to see the Messiah, as God has promised him that he will not die until he does so. When the time comes, Simeon, content, declares: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations; a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people
Israel” (Luke 2:29-32). He prophesies over the child, blesses Mary and Joseph, and warns Mary of what is to come.
Anna, on the other hand, is 84 when she sees the baby Jesus; Luke describes her as “very old”. What encouragement it can be that she becomes one of the first evangelists in the New Testament: “Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).
By God’s grace, every believer is empowered by the Holy Spirit, regardless of their age. On the day of Pentecost, Peter quotes the prophet Joel and says: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).
That does not mean that our role will necessarily remain the same as it did before: bearing fruit in old age might look different to how it did when we were
younger. David does not allow Hushai the Arkite to accompany him in his flight during Absalom’s rebellion: “If you go with me, you will be a burden to me” (2 Samuel 15:33). Instead, he sends him to Absalom to work as a diplomat, using his wisdom and experience to thwart the advice of Ahithophel. From there, Hushai is able to prevent Absalom launching an early strike against David and sends David a message to flee beyond the fords, saving his life.
But we also know that God is able to do remarkable things in anyone’s life, including those of the elderly. “Abram was seventyfive years old when he set out from Harran” (Genesis 12:4). Moses was 80 years old when he spoke to Pharaoh. Zechariah and Elizabeth were “very old.” Caleb even asks Joshua - and is permitted - to go into battle at the age of 85!
Regardless of your age, the Bible tells us, you still have something to offer: God can still use you, no matter what the world thinks.
Community
In God’s original creation, there was only one thing which he declared was not good: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Humans are designed to be in community, made in the image of our relational, Trinitarian God. And yet, of all those over the age of 65, 32% now live alone. Some will have been widowed; others, in a nation where marriage rates are falling and divorce rates rising, will have no one to live with; still others may be cut off from families or experience difficult relationships.
God’s vision for the church is for it to be a family. When Paul writes in Romans 12:10, “be devoted to one another in love”, he uses a word to denote ‘brotherly love’. We encounter an extended treatise on what church can be in 1 Timothy 5:1-2: “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” There is, of course, a particular responsibility in caring for one’s own blood family (1 Timothy 5:4), but Paul is quite clear: “Give proper recognition to those widows
who are really in need” (1 Timothy 5:3).
To care for the elderly - and indeed, all those who are vulnerable - reflects something of God’s heart: “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:17-18). The Church cannot allow the elderly to suffer on their own. John Wyatt writes: “From a Christian perspective we are not autonomous individuals doing our own thing. We are locked together in community, bound together by duties of care, responsibility and compassion.” 13 Not every solution needs to be left to the government: as Christians we have an active role to play.
Care for the widow appears as a repeated refrain throughout both the Old and New Testaments; the early church had a list of widows (one qualification for being on it was being over the age of 60) precisely because taking care of those who are vulnerable
remains a Christian duty. Particularly striking are these words from James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” In today’s world, in which women work just as men do, we can assume that God’s desire to protect the elderly does not just stop at the widow: we worship a God who “sets the lonely in families” (Psalm 68:6).
This is something which Jesus himselfand his disciples - looked to do. As he was dying on the cross, he sought to ensure that his elderly mother was provided for: “When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, ‘Woman here is your son,’
and to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ From that time on, this disciple took her into his home” (John 19:26-27). The beloved disciple welcomed Mary into his family - we are to assume that Joseph has died, and Jesus was the eldest son - and ensured that she would not be left on her own to fend for herself.
When the church is at its best, those who are elderly - even if they live on their ownwill feel that they are loved, cared for and are valued as part of a community. This may entail midweek groups, or hubs where they can meet, or pastoral visits, not just from clergy, but from the wider church family. Their views on church services will be listened to; this does not mean they will always be enacted, but the elderly should not feel disenfranchised from their own
church community, and they should at least feel valued for their wisdom.
In today’s world, sadly, some churches put such emphasis on their work for children and young people (which is, of course important!), that those who are elderly can end up feeling like their church has little interest in them, or like they can only attend a traditional service, as the main service on a Sunday is so tailored to a different demographic. In particular, we need to reclaim the value of cross-generational friendships, so that elderly people can genuinely feel like they are part of a family, rather than that they only ever meet others who are at a similar age and stage.
A truly Christian vision for old age is one where the elderly do not feel like they are alone. And we know, ultimately, that God does not abandon us in our old age. He promises the faithful Israelites: “Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
James 1:27
I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:3-4). As Christians, we worship a God who goes before us (Deuteronomy 31:8), who walks alongside us (Joshua 1:9), and who, by His Holy Spirit, actually dwells inside us (1 Corinthians 6:19). We are never truly alone, even in death’s darkest valley; for we worship the God whose name is Emmanuel, ‘God with us’.
Suffering
Our world has forgotten what it is to suffer well; perhaps a by-product of our relative prosperity in the West, suffering is now not only seen as an evil (which, indeed, it is), but something which is utterly irredeemable. We now feel we have a right not to suffer, as with our medical advances we are more in control of our bodies than we have ever been before. Our secular worldview is no longer set up to cope with suffering. John Wyatt explains: “Pain is useless, futile, destructive, incomprehensible, terrifying. For many, the purpose of existence is to maximise personal happiness, but if we cannot be happy at least we can try to anaesthetise the pain.”14
And old age can undeniably be a time of suffering. This can be overplayed - whilst some horror-stories of medical care gone wrong gain much media attention, the majority of deaths can actually now be made peaceful with palliative care - but for all of us, our bodies will eventually fail us as things begin to ache and break. Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 paints a sobering picture of life’s final days, with its run down of body
parts which no longer work. Shakespeare’s Jaques makes a similar point in ‘As you Like it’: “Last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness and mere oblivion; sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
It is not just physical pain people fear, but indignity and the need to depend upon others. The television journalist Ludovic Kennedy, who became a prominent advocate for assisted suicide, gives a clear insight into the way the modern world thinks: “For many people the fear of being snuffed out before our time has been superseded by a greater fear, that of suffering a painful and lingering death when all possibility of revival has gone, being kept alive by deteriorating all the time. It is not death that people fear most, but undignified dying.”15
We have to be careful with how the Christian message comes across here: there is a danger that we can be accused of lacking compassion, or of telling others to simply put up with their pain. For when people feel that pain should not be a part of human experience, they speak truer than they know: the fact is that suffering is an alien invader to our world, and it shouldn’t be here.
When we look at the Bible’s macro-narrative, we see that many of the things we most associate with old age - disease, decay and death - are not part of God’s good design for the world. Whatever aging may have looked like in Eden, it did not resemble what we experience now. For “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In fact, far from having to worry about death, Adam and Eve lived in a garden with the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9). Humans were not created for death but for life.
Yet when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge, creation fell, death
entered the world, and everything began to malfunction, from our relationships to our bodies and to the world around us. Health gave way to disease; wholeness to decay; life to death, for “dust we are, and to dust [we] shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Whatever negative aspects there are to aging, they are emblematic of a world which has gone wrong.
Christians do not merely have a worldview which explains suffering, but one which offers a way of living in response. The Bible insists that we have compassion on people during their suffering (whether physical, mental or spiritual) and, although we look
to alleviate it wherever possible, we have a duty to protect the vulnerable. Indeed, God explicitly references the elderly within Old Testament law: “Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God” (Leviticus 19:32).
This means - amongst other things - that we have a responsibility to advocate on behalf of anyone who might be put under pressure by the introduction of assisted suicide legislation: we have a duty to ensure the safety of those who are vulnerable, in the midst of rising concerns that the terminally ill might be put under pressure to choose death, whether as a result of the increasing demands on the health service or the desire not to be a burden on one’s family.
“When people feel that pain should not be a part of human experience, they speak truer than they know: suffering is an alien invader in our world.”
forgotten that suffering can have any value whatsoever. Whereas the secular world sees suffering as nothing more than something to be got rid of (and sometimes argues that if you cannot remove the suffering, then perhaps you should remove the sufferer, as if humans could be put out of their misery, like animals), at the heart of the Biblical narrative is God’s transformation of the suffering of an innocent into the redemption of the world.
And, although this should never be said callously or tritely, as Christians, we do believe that God can use all things - even our suffering - for good. Our world has
Scripture tells us that God refines us through suffering (Isaiah 48:10, 1 Peter 1:6-7), of how suffering can act as God training and disciplining a child (Hebrews 12:7), and of how suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance produces character, and character produces a hope that will not put us to shame (Romans 5:3-5). Indeed, James even tells us how, when we suffer, we are to consider it “pure joy”, and that it can help
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16
us to be “mature and complete, not lacking anything.”
Christians are on an inexorable road towards sanctification and glorification, being transformed each day into the likeness of Christ: this is a journey that does not come to an end in old age. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” For the elderly, this might particularly mean preparing to face death: we are forced to confront the fact that we are just creatures, rather than the Creator, and that we are not in control of our own destinies. If people have an understandable fear of losing their independence, this is a season like no other, in which we can relearn dependence upon God, and in which
we can say, with the Psalmist “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing”.
The theologian and counsellor David Field writes: “Later life may be marked less by activity, achievement, agency, and autonomy. It may be marked more by accepting, letting go, and waiting. And if so, it is the perfect moment for learning to be as children which is essential to being in the kingdom (Matthew 18), for deepening poverty of spirit which is the first of all blessednesses (Matthew 5), for relinquishing everything which is the condition of discipleship (Luke 14), and for patterning our Philippians 3 life according to the shape of Jesus’s Philippians 2 life.”16
There is a danger of course, that in telling the secular world this, we can sound glib about people’s pain; the world knows little redemptive purpose to suffering beyond platitudes like ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ But in our better story, although we recognise that suffering is an evil, we look for ways to suffer ‘well’, whether that be helping and walking alongside others, or looking at how God might be working in our own lives.
Hope
The older we get, the more we live in the shadow of death. It is perhaps in looking to the future that the difference between the secular and Christian worldviews is most pronounced. To those who have no faith, the future can offer nothing but further decline, disease and pain, until our mortal bodies fail us and we lie cold in the grave. There is no ultimate meaning, no righting of wrongs, and no hope of escape. Richard Dawkins famously delivered this verdict on our world: “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” 17
This is a story with no happy ending; but one where every tale ends with the refrain of Genesis 5: “and he died.”
The Christian story ends quite differently. For the Christian, every passing day brings us closer to redemption. The American pastor Jared Mellinger sums up: “As life’s chapters begin to close, our union with Christ orients us to what is real. For those in Christ, aging is more about hope than fear, more about honour than dishonour, more about holiness than decay, more about
gain than loss.”18
On that day, the curse of the Fall will be undone, and everything sad will become untrue. Disease and decay and death will be defeated, as God brings about the final union of heaven and earth: Jesus had already partially begun this work during his time on earth when he announced the coming of the Kingdom of God, restoring sight to the blind, speech to the dumb, and hearing to the deaf. But in the future, God “will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).
There is hope for us as our bodies begin to wear out: one day they will be changed into a resurrection body that can never wear out or decay. Paul writes in Philippians 3:2021: “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” This is the answer when, like in Ecclesiastes
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.”
John
11:25-26
12:1, “the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find no pleasure in them’”. Whatever aches and pains we suffer now, they will not last. As Don Carson once said, quoting a friend of his who was dying, “I’m not suffering from anything that a good resurrection can’t fix.” 19
There need be no fear as we approach death: Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:2526). The power of death has been broken by Christ’s resurrection, and as he lived, so we too can live. Hebrews 2:15 reads: “Since the children have flesh and blood, [Jesus] too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who
holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
They say that life begins at 50. But for Christians, the best is yet to come; or as CS Lewis once wrote in a letter to a lady who was afraid of dying, “There are better things ahead than any we leave behind”.20 Sins will be forgiven; shame will be removed; suffering will be a long-forgotten memory. This is life, in all its fullness: in the words of an old hymn, “it is not death to die.” Paul looked forward to the day when he could be with the Lord Jesus, which was better by far: “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). For above all, then we will be gathered around the throne, worshipping the King, as God’s original creation purposes are fulfilled.
CS Lewis ends his Chronicles of Narnia in a wonderful depiction of this future hope, after the central characters die and the great lion Aslan raises them to new life in the new creation:
“‘The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.’”
And as [Aslan] spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at least they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”21
“There are better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
C.S.
Lewis
Conclusion
So is old age “life’s parody”, as Simone de Beauvoir said? As Christians, we surely have to disagree. For we really do have a better story to offer the world about what old age can look like. Yes, old age is hard; and yes, suffering really is an evil. The Bible is sufficiently raw and real about the human condition to be open about that, rather than just offering easy platitudes.
But at this point our stories must diverge. For we believe in a positive vision for aging, one which does not dismiss its difficulties, but one in which we recognise what the author of the story has to say about humanity.
We do believe in innate human worth and inherent dignity even in the midst of suffering, because our true identity is rooted in our status as creatures made in the very image of God himself.
We do believe in purpose and productivity for those who are old, even if it looks different to how it did when we were younger, because we believe in a God who accomplishes things through anyone.
We do believe in the prospect of community in old age, because we believe God has commissioned his church to be a family to care for the vulnerable and the lonely, with a particular emphasis on those who are elderly.
We do believe that - even though it is a sign that our world has gone wrong - our suffering can be redeemed, for we believe in a great Redeemer, who is at work even in the midst of suffering.
We do believe in hope, rooted in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and that instead of an inexorable march towards death and oblivion, as Christians, we are destined for transformation and for glory, on that day when sorrows are washed away and pain is no more.
This is the better story we need; one which explains why things are the way they are, points us as to how we can live, and gives us a sure and certain hope for the future. The great evangelist Billy Graham wrote, in one of his final books, “Old age may have its limitations and challenges, but in spite of them our latter years can be some of the most rewarding and fulfilling of our lives.”22 Might this be true of all of us, as we seek to “finish the race”.
For further reading
Billy Graham: Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well, 2011
Ian Knox: Finishing Well: A God’s eye view of aging, 2020
Henri J.M. Nouwen: Aging: the Fulfilment of life, 1976
JI Packer: Finishing our course with Joy, 2014
Derek Prime: A good old age, 2017
John Swinton: Dementia: Living in the memories of God, 2012
John Wyatt: Dying Well, 2018
John Wyatt: The Final Lap, 2023
References
1 Simone de Beauvoir, ‘Old Age’, translated by Patrick O’Brian, 1972
2 Louise Aronson, ‘Elderhood’, 2019
3 Jim Reed, ‘Covid inquiry told of trust do-not-resuscitate rule’, 2024
4 Cited in Ian Knox, ‘Finishing Well: A God’s eye view of aging’, 2020
5 John Swinton, ‘Dementia: Living in the memories of God’, 2012
6 GK Chesterton, cited in Tim Chester, ‘Good news to the Poor’, 2004
7 CS Lewis, ‘Prince Caspian’, 1951
8 As cited in Ian Knox, ‘Finishing Well: A God’s eye view of aging’, 2020
9 JI Packer, ‘Finishing our course with joy’, 2014
10 JI Packer, cited in Ivan Mesa, ‘J. I. Packer, 89, on losing sight but seeing Christ’, 2016
11 Tom Holland, ‘Rubicon’, 2003
12 Louise Aronson, ‘Elderhood’, 2019
13 John Wyatt, ‘Matters of life and death’ (2nd ed.), 2012
14 John Wyatt, ‘Matters of life and death’ (2nd ed.), 2012
15 Ludovic Kennedy, quoted in the ‘Evening Standard’, 1992
16 David Field, ‘Theology of Ageing/Growing Older’, 2021
17 Richard Dawkins, ‘River out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life’, 1995
18 Jared Mellinger, ‘Do not fear growing old with him’, 2018
19 Don Carson, ‘How can a good God allow suffering’, 2016
20 C.S. Lewis, ‘The Last Battle’, 1956
21 C.S. Lewis, ‘The Last Battle’, 1956
22 Billy Graham, ‘Nearing Home: Life, Faith and Finishing Well’, 2011
CARE’s vision is to see politics renewed and lives transformed. Our conviction is that the Bible speaks a better story into our broken world than the one society can offer us, about what it means to be truly human and to flourish. For more than 40 years, we have been a leading voice on behalf of the voiceless and the marginalised, campaigning for a society which reflects more of God’s heart. We work alongside churches, politicians and the leaders of tomorrow and believe that through our partnership, God can bring His Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.
Peter Ladd has been the Head of Content at CARE since August 2022. He read Classics at Oxford University as an undergraduate, and stayed there to do a Postgraduate Diploma in Theology. He regularly commentates on cultural issues through the lens of a Biblical worldview, heads up the 20s/30s ministry in his church alongside his wife, and is a lay preacher.
CARE (Christian Action Research and Education) Chief Executive Ross Hendry | Co-Founder Lyndon Bowring
CARE is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales at 53 Romney Street, London, SW1P 3RF Company No: 3481417 | Charity No: 1066963 | Scottish Charity No: SC038911
To request a CARE speaker, contact: Pete Killingley (Head of Church Engagement) 07384 117491 | peter.killingley@care.org.uk
