THE GRIM REAPER

Mockups of the “Grim Reaper” have him appearing dour and cheerless as he (usually) goes about his task as a mythical personification of death. He mostly wears a black robe and carries a scythe, which he uses to separate the soul from the body, his harvest for the afterlife. The Grim Reaper is a blend from older European traditions and was referred to in connections with the Bubonic Plague (the Black Death) that once ravaged the European continent.

He is symbolic, a western cultural archetype, with similar figures in other cultures. In Norse paganism, a goddess of death occurs. In Greek literature Thanatos is the God of Death, but mainly for “non-violent” death. In Irish mythology, Donn (the dark one) was said to live in the “house of the dark one,” where the souls of the dead gathered. Roman mythology had Mors as the personification of death and the equivalent of the Greek figure Thanatos.

We could go on: there are death figures and deities in cultures around the world, illustrating the inherent and intuitive searching for how death occurs and how it can be represented. According to a note on Internet, a man in Florida dressed as the Grim Reaper on Halloween and went to the waiting room, calling out names. The person got sent home.

There was no such figure in the Kewa culture where we worked in Papua New Guinea, but the departed spirits of the dead could provide grief. They could cause havoc to the relatives of the dead, who had to be diligent in looking after their corpse, spirit, and eventually the bones. The departed spirits did not carry a weapon but relied instead on magic and sorcery.

In the Bible, e.g. Matthew 13.39, the angels are the reapers, and in Revelation 14.15 they represent the gathering and judgment of spiritual fruit and judgment. “Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.” (ESV)

In John 4.36-38 the reaper receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life. There, the Reaper and the Sower work together, the reaper benefiting from the prior work of the Sower. In the Bible the angels do not bring evil, although they are certainly at odds with the demons, who indeed can be Grim Reapers.

Christians should not fear death, nor any personifications of it. We do not wave a flag with skull and crossbones to represent part of our theology. 

In the book of Revelation we read of the Pale Horseman who rides on a pale horse and Hades follows him, wielding power by the sword, famine, plague and beasts.

In Exodus there is a dark entity, the Angel of Death, who according to the Midrash, was created by God on the first day. In that account, at the hour of death, “he stands at the head of the departing one with a drawn sword, to which clings a drop of gall. As soon as the dying man sees Death, he is seized with a convulsion and opens his mouth, whereupon Death throws the drop into it.” Interestingly, the expression "the taste of death" came from the idea that death was caused by that drop.

The angel of death is also alluded to in Habakkuk 2.5, “indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest. Because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied, he gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples.” In Job 18.13 we read that “It eats away parts of his skin;death’s firstborn devours his limbs.”

In the hour of death, he stands at the head of the departing one with a drawn sword, to which clings a drop of gall. As soon as the dying man sees Death, he is seized with a convulsion and opens his mouth, whereupon Death throws the drop into it. This drop causes his death; he turns putrid, and his face becomes yellow. The expression "the taste of death" originated in the idea that death was caused by a drop of gall.

Contrast the angel of death with those who will be sent out by Jesus to weed out the kingdom: “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.” (Mathew 13.41)

The weeping and weeding may indeed be grim in the last days, but not because of any mythical “Grim Reaper.”

Christians are promised an afterlife in the presence of Jesus, so we will never be alone at death.