The tragic deaths of three young men in one congregation in just fifteen months, is not only sobering but also leads to lots of questions and soul-searching. That happened to the congregation I served in Hobart in the early 1980s. A young man and father of two drowned while having a scuba-diving lesson. While the family and the church were still coming to terms with that, another of our young men was taken by a shark – his body was never found. That was followed soon after by the death of a young man who wrapped his car around a tree.

Last Sunday there was a sense of shock in our church as we too came to terms with the tragic death of a young husband and father. Tomorrow we're planning to attend the funeral but it will take us much longer to come to terms with the reality that God has not only taken a husband and father out of a family but also an active member out of our church. There's an empty place among us.

It seems to me that we in our western society are living in a situation that is somewhat artificial. If we were living in West Africa where the Ebola virus has killed more than 2000 people in recent months, death would be a much more constant companion. Similarly, if we were living in Syria or northern Iraq where ISIS is carrying out mass executions it would be much more difficult to avoid the daily reality of death. We who live in Australian suburbia are often sheltered from death for long periods of time. Until suddenly and unexpectedly someone in our circle of friends and family loses their life and we are again confronted with what the Bible calls "the last enemy".

George Bernhard Shaw once said, "The statistics of death are impressive. One out of one people dies." At one level we all know that. One day I will preach my last sermon and one day you will listen to your last sermon. One day you will go shopping for the last time and one day I will make my final holiday trip. At another level we prefer not to think about that. The comedian Woody Allen probably summed up the attitude of most of us when he said, "I'm not afraid of death. I just don't want to be there when it happens."

In some ways it's a pity that we are often very sheltered from death. I had a pastor colleague who had to take his first funeral service in his late twenties when he had never been to a funeral in his life. Eugene Peterson, in his book The Pastor, tells of visiting a Benedictine Monastery. Walking from the chapel to the dining room the path led through a cemetery. They passed an open grave. His wife, Jan, asked, "Oh, did one of the brothers just die?" The reply was, "No, that's for the next one." Peterson comments, "Three times a day on their way from praying together to eating together the monks are reminded that one of them will be 'the next one'."

I mention all this because we Christians should not only live a good life. We should also die a good death. But how do we actually do that? Three things come to mind.

I guess that most importantly we're enabled to die a good death only by the grace of God. In other words, there's little point in us worrying about how to die now – the Lord will give us the grace to die well at the time when we need that grace.

However it's also worth thinking about the fact that if we live well then it's also easier to die well. If we keep short accounts with God and with other people... if we make the most of every day that the Lord gives us then it will also be easier to say farewell to this life without regrets.

But those two important things should not prevent us from doing a third thing – and that is reflect a little more often than we are generally inclined to do, on the reality that we must all appear one day before the judgment seat of God. And we can do that because through Jesus we have a hope that goes beyond the grave.

John Westendorp