O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?

by Alexander Schmemann

"...In order to console himself, man created a dream of another world where there is no death, and for that dream he forfeited this world, gave it us decidedly to death. "...Therefore, the most important and most profound question of the Christian faith must be, how and from where did death arise, and why has it become stronger than life? Why has death become so powerful that the world itself has become a kind of global cemetery, a place where a collection of people condemned to death live either in fear or terror, or, in their efforts to forget about death, find themselves rushing around one great big burial plot?"- Alexander Schmemann, Radio Liberty Broadcast In this brief collection, Father Alexander Schmemann does not have the luxury for platitudes and pleasantries on the most difficult of life's ultimate questions. Taking us to the heart of Christian revelation and anthropology, he leads us unequivocally and directly, as only he can, to discole why the apostle Paul calls death the "last enemy" (1 Cor. 15:26) and Christ's decisive answer to this enemy. Father Alexander Schmemann (†1983) was a prolific writer, brilliant lecturer, and dedicated I Believe...

Genres: Theology, Christianity, Religion, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Death, Christian

Paperback

First published August 15, 2012

About the author

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann was a prominent Eastern Orthodox theologian and priest of the Orthodox Church in America.

Reviews

[Cameron Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

My annual Lent read.

--
Wow. I think I underlined 95% of this little book—one of the most moving pieces of theology I’ve read. On the basis of Christ’s bodily resurrection, Schmemann challenges both escapist and naturalist approaches to Death. Death is not a happy transition to a better bodiless existence (contra Plato); nor is it simply the natural or benign terminus of biological life (contra scientistic naturalism). No, “death is the last enemy to be defeated.” And Christ, according to the Easter message, has defeated it indeed.

[Simon Wiebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Buchlein ist eine Zusammenstellung von Sendungen, die Schmemann auf Russisch im Radio aufgenommen hat. Es geht um Menschen im Zeitalter der Ideologie, über das Geheimnis des Bösen, das Gewissen und das Verhältnis zum Tod. Inhaltlich hat es mich weder richtig ergriffen, noch innerlich aufgewühlt. Ich persönlich hätte mir mehr Verarbeitung der orthodoxen Kirchenväter gewünscht. Wollte mehr über die orthodoxe Tradition bzw die Kirche des Ostens lernen, aber der Ertrag war mir recht gering.

[Jose Ovalle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than my standard gripe when I read Eastern Orthodox writers of lack of forensic justification language anywhere, this was a joy to read. Convicting and comforting. Christianity is not an escape from death but a clinging to the One who trampled death- “If to love someone means that I have my life in Him, or rather that he has become the content of my life, to love Christ is to know and to possess Him as the life of my life”

Amen and Amen!!!

[Christopher Esget · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profound analysis of how secularism and "religion" have sought to tame death, while the true Christian doctrine brings into the world death's destruction by Christ who is Life. You will never view your existence in this "cosmic graveyard" the same way.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small, readable, and very excellent work. Fr Alexander reminds the reader that the Christian faith historically has rejected two ways of approaching humanity's mortality, acceptance and denial. Instead, the faith has proclaimed death to be an 'enemy', the last enemy defeated in Christ's victory. Great Easter season reading.

[Misael Galdámez · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world needs more Schmemann and sacramental theology.

[E.M. Welcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Here is a man suffering on his bed of pain and the Church comes to him to perform the sacrament of healing. For this man, as for every man in the whole world, suffering can be defeat, the way of complete surrender to darkness, despair and solitude. It can be dying in the very real sense of the word. And yet it can be also the ultimate victory of Man and of life in him. The Church does not come to restore health in this man, simply to replace medicine when medicine has exhausted its own possibilities. The Church comes to take this man into the Love, the Light and the Life of Christ. It comes not merely to 'comfort' him in his sufferings, not to 'help' him, but to make him a martyr, a witness to Christ in his very sufferings." ~ Alexander Schmemann "O Death, Where Is Thy Sting" pg. 107-108

[Richard Fitzgerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alexander Schmemann has written one of the most compelling theological musings on death I’ve ever read. Death is not just the end of life, nor is it some cycle of life. Death is not natural or good. Death is evil. Death is our enemy.

The Christian view of death is not that it is a doorway into a better place. It is an enemy that steals God-given life from humanity. But, through the resurrection, we have someone who defeated death, Jesus Christ. By clinging closely to Jesus, we will join him in the victory over the evil enemy of death.

This should be required reading for all.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last chapter was fantastic, but it was also from Schmemann's For the Life of the World. The other material was merely ok.

[David Galloway · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of various talks, articles, and one extended selection from Schmemann's watershed work, "For the Life of the World". It is a short volume that is written for an intelligent non-theologian. It would be a great book to give a believer who is worried about death or a young person who is struggling with the concept of mortality.

To give you a taste of the book, here is a short section where Fr. Alexander talks about the Fall of Adam and it's implications:

"The very fall of man consists in the fact that he desired life for himself and in himself, and not for God and in God. God made this very world as a means of communion with himself, but man desired the world purely for himself alone. Instead of returning God's love with love for him, man fell in love with the world, as a goal in itself. But herein lies the whole problem, that the world cannot be an end in and of itself, just as food has no purpose unless it is transformed into life."

"But if the world is no longer transformed into anything, if life ceases to be a transformation into communion with Absolute Meaning, with Absolute Beauty, with Absolute Goodness, then this world becomes not only meaningless, it becomes death. Nothing has life in and by itself, everything vanishes, everything dissolves. Cut off from its roots, a flower can live for a short time in water and even decorate a room, but we realize that it is dying, that it is already subject to corruption.

Man ate the forbidden fruit, thinking that it would give him life. But life itself outside of and without God is simply communion with death. It is no accident that what we eat already needs to be dead in order to become our life. We eat in order to live, but since we eat something that is already deprived of life, food itself inevitably leads us to death. And in death there neither is nor can be any life."

[Fábio Brás · Rating 5 out of 5]

No, it is not with this kind of salvation that we are concerned. We are concerned rather with that salvation of which we spoke previously, from that radical and tragic transformation that occurred and is still constantly taking place in the rapport of man with his own life—a transformation that man himself is already incapable of correcting and restoring. The name that I gave to this transformation, to this fall, is death; death, not only as the end of life, but life itself as a senseless waste, as diminution and disappearance, life itself as a dying, already from the moment of birth; the transformation of the world into a cosmic cemetery; the hopeless subjection of man to disintegration, to time, and to death. It is not the weak person but rather the one who is strong who seeks salvation, who thirsts for it. The weak person looks for help. The weak person desires that mediocre and boring happiness that is offered to him by the various ideologues that have once and for all come to terms with death. The weak ones are content to accept to live for a while and then to die. Those who are strong consider such a view unworthy of man and of the world. This is our response to the opponents of Christianity who claim that we are terribly weak if we need salvation. It is not we alone who need this, but that whole image of the world and of the true life that lives in man; that whole being, which recoils against this senseless commotion on a globe stuffed with corpses.

[Kristie · Rating 5 out of 5]

“‘I am the image of your ineffable glory’ - and yet they remove him and hide him so that he would not smell and disrupt their routines - this man, this image and likeness of God, this king, this crown of creation!”

Schmemann confronts us with the common pathetic views of death which plague the Christian world. First, there is the method of looking at life as morbid and a meaningless path to a life of the future “other world”. Second, there is the method of looking at life as all there is with nothing after death, so it must be lived in comfort and power.

Schmemann, of course, regards life and death differently. In this compilation of Schmemann’s talks about death (and life), we are challenged to see death as an unnatural enemy - an enemy destroyed by Christ’s death. We are challenged to see death in all of life, and then live and experience the transformation of our death-filled lives into Christ-filled lives. Christ-filled lives could easily be called Life-filled lives... or just Life. Life with a capital ‘L’, as Schmemann calls it.

This concept begins sounding very abstract, but as the book is finished, really comes together to a Christian viewpoint which after reading the whole book, seems obvious! Schmemann’s works have this simple-complexity to them, and this book is no different.

[Patrick Funston · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up for a Holy Week read and felt that it accomplished what I asked of it. There were some great ideas in here and I’ll probably come back to it for sermons. But I also feel like I’m probably not smart enough to get the depth and breadth of what’s offered here. I need to try one of Schmemann’s larger books.

[J. Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

The final chapter makes the whole book. Seems like the Orthodox get it where everyone else gets lost in their heads. The point is the world has already been saved and is being saved and creation is always being reconciled to its creator.

[Jared Kassebaum · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays and radio broadcast transcripts were a good introduction to Schmemann's work and a beautiful exposition of the Orthodox mindset toward the atonement and death. I will read more Schmemman surely soon.

[Oscar Rodriguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me quedo con la frase que viene en la contraportada: "el cristianismo no acepta la muerte, sino que lucha contra ella y su sinsentido para vencerla por completo".

Las ideas me parecieron poco desarrolladas y en mucho repetitivas.

[Chad Volmert · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. Good reminders but made a lot of shallow points and did not expand them in any greater depth. Without a clear focus on its narrative of the Christian view of life and death, it leaves the reader with much more to be desired.

[Daniel Riquelme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cómo dice el Apóstol Pablo, sin Resurrección de los muertos nuestra fé es nula. Pero Schmemman va más allá. Recordando el consuelo presente que implica saber que los que han partido con Cristo gozan eternamente y nosotros debemos participar de la vida resurrecta.

[Ana Teoh · Rating 4 out of 5]

very nice

[Dennis Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Always read Schmemann.

Once we realize that what is offered is salvation and fullness of life, so much more makes sense. A great read.

[Mauricio Basoalto · Rating 4 out of 5]

La muerte, el último enemigo en ser vencido, lejos de ser una parte menor de la escatología cristiana es central. La comprensión que aportó la doctrina cristiana a la idea de la resurrección, y cómo llena esos vacíos de la cultura pagana y le ofrece un significado adecuado en la perspectiva histórica es asombroso. Este libro es un precioso tesoro desde el mundo ortodoxo para la destructiva pseudo filosofía de la muerte imperante en nuestro contexto.

[Невен Паштар · Rating 5 out of 5]

Књига која није писана, као таква - нажалост!
Ауторова прерана смрт то није дозволила.
Наиме, ово су записи са четвородневног предавања оца Шмемана на Академији св. Владимира, које је успио да сачува његов тадашњи студент, снимајући исто.
Прво и четврто предавање су заиста за сваког човјека, средишња два могу бити крајње интересантни богословима, али и историчарима религије.
Књига лишена сваке површности!

[Conor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely beautiful book.