Dying With Dignity

House doesn't usually make profound statements. Revealing, yes. Insightful, yes. Vulgar, yes. Profound, no. But in a rerun I was just watching, he made a profound statement. A patient was dying and decided that it would be better to to just go ahead and die with dignity rather than being constantly tested. However, House finally made the correct diagnosis - she had a worm in her brain. (It's always something exotic on House.) So House goes in to talk to her and in the process makes this statement:

"You can live with dignity, but you can't die with dignity."

I suppose we have a romanticized notion of a dignified death where the family is gathered around the bedside and the dying person drifts quietly and painlessly into inanimacy. But this is a false notion that aids only mourners who have no faith.

For the believer, we have confidence that one who has had faith has been received into paradise to be with Christ as He promised the thief on the cross.

But the death of the body speaks of a need rather than a reward. Our bodies die because this world is thoroughly corrupted with sin. There is no dignity in that and the death of the body, whether of a believer or an unbeliever, shows the extent of the corruption that we have brought upon the image of God with which we have been created.

There is no dignity in death, but all dignity will be restored in the resurrection.