Psalm 116: Precious

About ten years ago I was at a funeral where the officiating pastor asked if I would read Psalm 116. I had not been on the program or come prepared to take part in the service, but the pastor making the request was my mentor and when she asked, I was inclined to say “yes”. I am sure I had read it before, probably many times, but Psalm 116 was not familiar, I did not immediately recall any part of it or know why it was appropriate to read at this or any other funeral. I sat down before the service and read it over, when I did, it was as if I had never read verse 15 before, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” In the last ten years I have read, quoted, and meditated on this verse hundreds of times. What does it mean and how could it be that God calls the death of those who love Him precious? 

Precious may not be very high on the list of words that come to mind when I think of death. Death is often a shock, even if it is not sudden. It is breath-taking, life-changing, soul-shaking, even heart-breaking. For the living, death is met with grief, mourning, sadness, and loss. We were not created to die, so death continues to be something that feels out of reach when we try to understand, embrace, or even endure it. We believe and at times cling to Paul’s words in II Corinthians 5:8, “Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” We know that, for those who belong to Jesus, the other side of death is His presence and yet we are left to feel the absence of those who have left the body. To be blunt, death stings. 

The New Testament has a bit to say about death, but nowhere does it describe it as beautifully and gently as Psalm 116. I Corinthians 15:26 calls death the last enemy to be destroyed. II Timothy 1:10 assures us that Jesus “abolished death”. Revelation 20:14 looks forward to the day when Death and Hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. And then there is Revelation 21:4, a verse often quoted, and a promise longed for, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” No more death sounds almost too good to be true, but then, we begin to realize that the removal or defeat of death is the key to the entire promise. 

What was the original warning that God gave Adam? Genesis 2:16-17, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” What was the first lie that the enemy of our soul ever spoke to mankind? In Genesis 3:4 the serpent said to Eve, “You will not surely die”. God was protecting us from what Satan was trying to deceive us into, death. For us, death is about absence and separation. What is our grief in death? Is it not the absence of those we had loved, even if we believe fully that they are “with the Lord”, we feel the weight of them not being with us? We mourn their absence; we grieve the loss of not only of their presence, but the life we lived with them because while we keep living, there are parts of life that have ended. 

It is often said that Adam and Eve did not die when they sinned, but if death is about absence and separation, they most certainly died. Their physical bodies did not cease to live, but the life they lived with God died when they chose sin. Not only did they recognize their nakedness and hide in their shame, but the nearness of God also became a source of fear rather than joy. They were removed from the garden that God had created for them, not as punishment but as protection. Their sin separated them from every place that they had once shared with God, He was not far from them, He clothed them with animal skins and promised them a Redeemer, He provided them with children, but they were far from Him, far from the relationship they once shared, separated from the relationship they were created to have. It was hundreds of years before their bodies died, but when they ate of the fruit of the tree God had forbidden, Adam and Eve tasted death. 

I think the verse we quote the most often about death is probably I Corinthians 15:54b-55, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” We quote these triumphantly, sometimes I feel as if we quote them to chase away sadness, to hasten mourning or to deny grief. We attempt to comfort one another with things like “You will see them again” or “They are in a better place”. All this while denying the fact that death still stings. We cannot hasten someone’s healing by denying their pain. You see, I Corinthians 15 is all about the future, about the resurrection of the dead, about that great moment when Jesus returns, the dead in Christ rise and death, then, is defeated. Until then we see examples in Scripture of how we should be dealing with death. Israel mourned for 30 days, as a nation, after the death of Moses. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus before He raised him from the dead. Acts 3:2 says, “Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.” We do a great disservice to each other when we minimize the effect that death has on us. 

But what is the effect that our death has on God? Again, Psalm 116:15 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.” We grieve, we mourn, death stings and God sees it as precious. What does that mean? The Hebrew word used in this verse is yaqar, it means valuable, worth protection. This word is used in the Old Testament 36 times, most often in referring to “precious stones” such as rubies, onyx, or sapphire. God calls the death of His saints, of His faithful ones, His godly ones, of those who belong to Him, precious, valuable, like expensive and beautiful stones, why? If being “away from the body” is being “at home with the Lord” as Paul wrote, then death brings us near to God again. Jesus is Immanuel, He is God with us, and the Holy Spirit is God in us, but somehow, by the grace and kindness of God, in death, in our last and most feared enemy, we are again with God. 

I was so moved the first time I read this passage at a funeral that I have never read it the same since. Have you ever considered what it must have been like, when on the night of His arrest, Jesus, after eating the Passover with His apostles, sang this song? Can you imagine His heart as He sang, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints” knowing that He would die within a matter of hours? How comforting was it to know that the death He would die would be precious in his Father’s eyes? Consider this, death came because of our sin, but then Jesus’ death defeated our sin. How great is our God in that what was our punishment became our benefit, that what came by our rebellion became the source of our redemption, that the thing that separated us from Him is what He used to come to us? The death of the saints is precious because Jesus died to save us, and He rose to redeem us. The death of every saint is a reminder of Jesus’ resurrection. The sting of death is only felt by the living, as Revelation 14:13a says, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” We grieve our loss while God rejoices in His gain. We weigh the absence while God enjoys the presence. We see death as a loss, but God sees it as precious. We feel its weight, but in it God displays His glory. We do not have to diminish or deny the grief we feel, but we also cannot forget or overlook the truth that God’s Word shares. Death stings for those still living, but for those who have gone on it is a blessing and for the God who receives them to Himself it is precious. There is grief on one side and joy on the other and it is the hope of resurrection found in Jesus that joins us all together.