"Do you guys ever think about dying?"
“Do you guys ever think about dying?”
If you’re one of the millions around the world who have come under the spell of the new Barbie movie (confession - I loved it), then you’ll know this one unforgettable line from the film.
During a bubbly, upbeat opening scene, where the Barbies are dancing around happily to Dua Lipa’s disco earworm Dance The Night (another confession - this song is currently on high rotation in our car), Margot Robbie’s Barbie stops everyone in their tracks with a question: “Do you guys ever think about dying?”
The existential question sees everyone freeze, the music grind to a halt, and crickets start chirping.
But before things get really awkward Robbie’s Barbie makes a quick backtrack to cover herself, chiming in with “I mean, I’m just dying to dance”. Phew, crisis averted Barbie.
The gnawing question remains
However, try as we might, the question still lingers in our minds long after the movie finishes. In fact Robbie herself admitted in a recent interview that she’s been unable to get the question out of her head since playing the role.
And yet, for most of life I think many of us (myself included) try and cultivate a glossy, shiny, bubbly Barbie-world to distract ourselves from this confronting reality. It’s just that occasionally, like Barbie in the film, the question of death rears its ugly head.
Is Barbie Land all there is?
However, given death is a reality all of us face, isn’t it worth sometimes thinking about dying? Why do we all face it? What happens to us afterwards? And what does it mean for how we should live now?
The secular humanist answer to these questions is usually not too dissimilar from what we see in Barbie Land. This life is all there is so get busy having fun, looking good, and don’t spend too much time worrying about getting old and dying. Quick, turn Dua Lipa back on.
But what if, just what if, this isn’t all there is?
For many of us I suspect we have Barbie moments, where we can’t shake the gnawing reality of death.
Even hardened atheists admit to this at times. Harvard professor James Wood writes of a friend, a philosopher and atheist, who sometimes wakes at night asking questions like, “How can it be that this world is the result of an accidental big bang? How could there be no design, no metaphysical purpose? Can it be that every life-beginning with my own, my husband's, my child's, and spreading outward-is cosmically irrelevant?”. Woods, himself a secular person, goes on to admit that as he gets older, “such moments of terror and incomprehension seem more frequent and more piercing, and, I find, as likely to arise in the middle of the day as the night”.
So Barbie’s question is a good one. One that we shouldn’t try and fight. Because, like Barbie, it's going to arise in our minds, perhaps in time as often in the middle of the day as the night.
So...do you ever think about dying? And where might we go for answers?
Finding answers to the death question
For me personally I find funeral notices and graveyards are a good place to start. Each Saturday morning I read the death notices in the newspaper. It helps ground me in the reality of death and not pretend that it’s not going to happen. Strolling through a graveyard also has a similar effect on me. As I walk slowly and read the headstones I find myself wondering who these long forgotten people are, and I am struck by how short my life is.
But there is one graveside that I find going to especially helpful, that is, the graveside of one of Jesus’ closest friends, Lazarus. John 11 records the scene, a picture that could not be more different to that opening scene in Barbie. A crowd of people, including Lazarus’ sisters are at his tomb, grieving his death. Everyone is thinking about dying.
It’s into this scene that Jesus enters, and at the sight of the tomb which contains the body of his dead friend he responds as any human would: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).
But this is not all. In the face of death, in the face of grief, Jesus makes an extraordinary claim. “I am the resurrection and the life” he says, “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). And then to prove his authority over death, Jesus speaks, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43). John then writes, “The dead man came out” (John 11:44). Lazarus is alive! In the face of dying, Jesus brings resurrection life.
Do you guys ever think about Jesus?
Barbie bursts the bubble of this material world, shocking us into reality with the blunt, provocative, but necessary question, “Do you guys ever think about dying?”
The answer for all of us inevitably is “yes”. We can’t escape its reality, and therefore we - even the most hardened atheists of us - can’t escape thinking about it.
But the real question is, when we think about dying, where will we go for answers?
Let me encourage you not to avoid the question, to change the subject, to turn the music back up, to keep on dancing. Give yourself permission to ponder this big question. Go to the places of death and explore. Read the death notices. Go to graveyards. And go to the graveside of Lazarus. Stand there at the tomb and hear the words of Jesus in the face of death, “I am the resurrection and the life”.
Next time you think about dying make sure you think about the claims of Jesus too. Because he spoke not just of death, but also life, indeed, eternal life.
If you want to make some space to ponder this big question, reach out
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