Like foolish children, Adam and Eve ran away from their home with God in paradise and took us with them into godlessness. They abdicated paradise for godlessness. They opted out as Lucifer and the gaggle of angels that follow him opted out. When God gave them the gift of paradise, God wanted them to keep it. However, they fumbled the ball - they muffed it.
Godlessness sucks. In godlessness, we are fish out of water. We were in trouble. We needed help.
So the Son of God dove into godlessness after us to rescue us.
He did not say "goodbye and good riddance" as the door between paradise and godlessness slammed shut behind us.
He did not delegate the job of rescue to his subordinates. He did not send his flunkies. The Son of God did the job himself. Our welfare is so important to God that he came to rescue us himself. (Thanks be to God.)
None shall perish because our rescuer is the God who loves us. God does not fail. God does not come up short. God does not miss the mark. The only people not rescued are the fools who refuse to be rescued - those who tell God to bugger off.
God designed his rescue plan to reduce the likelihood of post delivery paradise opt out to near zero.
Our lifeguard stays on the dock and watches as we are drowning in the stormy sea of godlessness but only for a moment. The delay gives us a taste of the sourness of godlessness. He gives us the experience that Adam and Eve so desired. By letting us drown for a little bit in godlessness we learn for ourselves that godlessness sucks. The illusion conjured up by the serpent that sugarcoats the sourness of godlessness is shattered.
The delay between the delivery of the gift of life and the delivery of the gift of paradise is the source of all the complaints about God's rescue plan. It is the cause of harsh criticism. Indeed, the delay is harsh medicine. However, the effectiveness of the medicine justifies its harshness in the eyes of God. When God gives us with the gift of paradise as he gave it to our parents, Adam and Eve, we, unlike them, shall not opt out. Oh! no. We shall keep it. The prodigal son is never going back to the pig sty and neither are we. By experiencing the pig sty for ourselves, we know better than to opt out.
Godlessness is autodidactic. It itself is the sledgehammer of truth that shatters the illusion as the blow of a hammer shatters glass. When the illusion is shattered, rational people flee the sourness of godlessness. It is contrary to their self-interest to do otherwise.
When the sourness of godlessness becomes unbearable, he rescues us. He pulls us out of this world and puts us into his world. As Our Lady said at Quito, we make that great leap from time to eternity.
Therefore, let us stop referring to our rescue from this world as death. Instead, say God rescued him or her from this world and, when the time is ripe, we, too , shall be rescued. In the interim, hope in our Savior and cling to the life preserver that he tossed to us - cling to love of him and our neighbor. Cling as Jesus clung while we wait for rescue.