Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:19-21)

A reflection on the past now turns to a reflection on the future, and the hinge around which it moves in this present moment of Paul’s writing, is the death and resurrection of Christ.

An older Christian tradition that we may have lost some sight of these days says that the role of the church is to prepare us for a good death. This happens through the regular practice of dying and rising with Christ. As Luke puts it in the mouth of Jesus in Luke 9:23, “whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Daily denying oneself. Daily facing one’s death in the death of Christ. Daily experiencing the new life of Jesus.

Paul had followed Jesus in this daily practice with his own cross and in his own way now for many years—with a thorn in the flesh, much suffering and hardship endured, much grief to bear, many relationships to tend, and much sin to repent. But in this work of dying: of relinquishing control, of admitting weakness, of grieving well, of turning from sin, of offering forgiveness and blessing to enemies—Paul has learned what it means to face death well. To face it, indeed, with hope and trust that the Spirit works to bring the new life and fruitfulness of Christ on the other side of that death.

As Paul writes elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body.” So it was.

Now near the end of Paul’s life as he faces the very real prospect of his actual death, he speaks from this life lived by daily carrying around the death and resurrection of Jesus in his body. He says: “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

This is an expression of the cyclical Christian habit of dying and rising with Christ. Across his life, Paul has discovered that dying always leads to new life in Jesus. And life in Jesus always leads to the cross. And the cross always leads again to the empty tomb of new life. Round and round it goes. In death, Christ is exalted and his life is received. In life, Christ is exalted as it is his life that is lived.

So, when it comes to Paul’s actual death—he sees it now as part of this same movement at the literal crux of our faith. Living is Christ, dying is gain. One’s mortal death met in this way is what the church has called a good death. A Christian death. A death saturated in the hopeful, practiced expectation of life.

Do you live in this way? Do you already now practice for a good, Christian death? As an Easter people of the Resurrection, we can. In Jesus, death no longer needs to be feared. It can be faced, even while we live.