Imagine peering into a room full of skeletons. Thousands of them. As you ponder crossing the threshold into this fleshless abode of skulls and femurs, you notice a sign above the door: “We bones here, for yours await.” Creepy, right? The place is giving a weird vibe, and its sign is a reminder that death is coming for you one day.
Would you go in?
Would it make a difference if you knew this precarious place is a church?
Built hundreds of years ago by monks, the Chapel of Bones was placed in the city of Évora, Portugal, to challenge the cultural cravings of the day: unhinged hurry and thoughtless striving for more. The Chapel of Bones faced off with these idols by bringing people face to face with the reality of death.
Why? Because death can be a teacher we learn from so we can live differently.
Entering the Chapel of Bones
Over the past several years, there has been more conversation about how we can learn from death. Some of it comes up in popular literature. In 2021, Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks, stirred widespread attention to the brevity of life (yes, the average lifespan of a person today is just four thousand weeks!). The fleeting nature of our days isn’t a concept confined to books, though.
As a pastor, I’ve noticed a significant rise in honest, personal reflections about the inevitability of death.
These conversations aren’t with people living with the tragedy of a terminal illness. They take place with people fatigued by the cultural cravings of unhinged hurry and thoughtless striving for more. It seems like there’s never enough time to get stuff done. And then there’s never enough money to get more stuff.
The hamster wheel of modern life doesn’t go anywhere, but it does take us to one place: the classroom of life’s brevity.
It’s like we’re all trying to enter the Chapel of Bones to see what we can learn and how we can live more fully. So, what’s the lesson for us?
Learning from Death
The Chapel of Bones is old, but its antiquity is far surpassed by the wisdom of the Bible itself. The people of God have been schooled for millennia by scripture’s honest examination of life’s brevity.
Consider the appeal to God in the Psalm of Moses: Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)
This is not a meager assent to the truth of death. It’s an appeal for God to teach us about our death—to help us number our days by his power and grace. In learning the brevity of life, we’re given a heart of wisdom. Our desires and priorities are reshaped when we realize we are finite and only God is infinite.
Ecclesiastes is another of the many biblical doorways into the Chapel of Bones. This book of wisdom presents us with a vast exploration of pleasure, wisdom, accomplishment, and how all those things elude our desire for self-made meaning. Why?
Because we humans are creatures living under the equalizing reality of death:
Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. (Ecclesiastes 3:19)
It’s understandable if someone’s tempted to demolish a pint of Ben and Jerry’s after reading this. But despair isn’t the point. Ecclesiastes is trying to do the same thing as Psalm 90 and the Chapel of Bones—it’s trying to help us learn to live differently.
I like how the pastor David Gibson describes the overarching message of Ecclesiastes in his book, Living Life Backward:
“Far from being something that makes life in the present completely pointless, future death is a light God shines on the present to change it. Death can radically enable us to enjoy life. By relativizing all that we do in our days under the sun, death can change us from people who want to control life for gain into people who find deep joy in receiving life as a gift.” (37)
Death teaches us that life isn’t found in unhinged hurry and thoughtless striving for more. Those idols are exposed as powerless in the classroom of death.
When I number my days, I live into the truth that every day—every moment—is a gift to be received from God. A heart of wisdom knows that every moment is a gift from the One who keeps our hearts beating.
So What?
What does it look like to number our days and receive life as a gift? Here are two simple ideas for letting the reality of death reshape the gift of life:
- Confront unhinged hurry with anchored curiosity.
Carve out some time each week (30 minutes to an hour or more) to zoom out on your life. Honestly face any sources of anxiety and bring them to God with a posture of curiosity, asking him to reveal the layers of your heart. The point is to let God teach you and give you a heart of wisdom.
Consider reading or praying through Psalm 90:12-17 to anchor your time in the steadfast love of God. The goal isn’t simply to slow down in this set time—it’s to slow down into a more human-paced tempo throughout the rest of your day. - Combat thoughtless striving with thoughtful gratitude.
Studies on gratitude abound, yet we often struggle to embody gratitude as a rhythm of life. Try ending every day by writing down at least three things you’re thankful for. “God, thank you for _____.”
Even seemingly small reasons for gratitude reflect the intimate nature of God’s grace. Most people find that the fuller their gratitude journals are, the emptier their Amazon carts can be
These rhythms don’t grant us more days than God has allotted for us, but they do guide us to be recipients who enjoy our numbered days as gifts.
A Temporary Teacher
Over the altar in the Chapel of Bones is a Latin phrase: “I die in the light.” The darkness of death is being extinguished by the light-creating life of King Jesus. Followers of Jesus can learn from death as a teacher, yet we don’t submit to it as a master.
In his crucifixion, resurrection, and reign, Jesus guarantees us that death is only a temporary teacher. His resurrection is a preview of our future resurrection and his final victory.
In a new heaven and new earth, we will live in days unnumbered with our hearts filled by our King. For now, we learn to number our days—to have wise hearts, receiving every moment, every gift, from the loving hand of our Creator.
Want to learn more about living life backwards from the book of Ecclesiastes? Read and listen along with Ten Minute Bible Talks' series through the book.
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