Crossing the Finish Line in Faith: The Challenge of Euthanasia in Canada Today

by Ken Maher

The runner staggers and stumbles. Every breath is a lancing fire down his side. He can barely lift his feet high enough to slide them forward. But the finish line is in sight, finally. It’s the end of the gruelling marathon, if he can just keep going a little farther. Then his ankle gives out and he’s on the ground. He struggles to rise only to fall back down again. His body and will are at war, and he cannot help but groan. Then he hears the roar of the crowds lining the road. He looks up with hope but it takes a moment for their words to register through the noise and the shock. “Quit!” they call out. “Just stop!” “You don’t have to suffer this indignity!” “What are you trying to prove?” “I don’t have time to wait here for you finish!” “You can end the race right here, right now.” “Quit! Quit! Quit!” 

Ridiculous? Yes. But, sadly, not unthinkable in our day and age. The statistics on euthanasia in Canada are staggering. More than 13,200 Canadians died by assisted suicide in 2022. This is a 31.2 percent increase from 2021 alone. The total number of physician-assisted deaths in Canada sits at nearly 45,000. MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) is now the fifth-leading cause of death among all Canadians. In Quebec, euthanasia makes up seven percent of all deaths—the highest in the world. Recently, the government’s proposed loosening of MAiD to include people suffering only from mental distress faced more backlash than expected and was thankfully postponed until 2027. But make no mistake: it is neither gone nor forgotten. It will be back again in some form, and we will have to address the ever-weakening bonds no longer able to protect Canadian lives on their bad days. 

And all of this is unfolding in the midst of a healthcare crisis in which our medical system seems incapable of offering timely psychiatric services, suicide prevention, or palliative beds. Can you blame people for opting for state-sanctioned suicide when they feel they have no other choice? In many cases, people believe that MAiD is the only thing they’re eligible for.

In many cases, people believe that MAiD is the only thing they’re eligible for.

And MAiD is not just an option to be explored; sometimes it is a mandate to be enforced by weight of the law. In 2017, the Fraser Valley health authority in British Columbia ordered all the healthcare facilities it oversaw, including hospices, to offer MAiD. The Delta Hospice Society, which ran the Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, B.C., objected. To make a long and sad story short, despite some initial victories by the hospice, the province simply withdrew $1.5 million in annual funding to the society, terminated their lease, and evicted the hospice’s residents. The health authority then took over the running of the hospice with new rules that allowed MAiD on the premises. It seems the powers that be will get their blood one way or another—so what are we Christians to do in the face of this juggernaut of death?

Christ on the Mount of Olives: Théodore Chassériau, 1540.

First, we should be reminded that Jesus Himself came up hard against the finish line, so to speak, that night in the Garden of Gethsemane. St. Mark records His anguished prayer. It is the cry of a man on his last legs—a man who doesn’t know if He can finish the race. “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death,” He told His disciples. And going a little farther, He fell on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father, all things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me. Yet not what I will, but what You will” (Mark 14:34-36).

This is the insidious temptation that waits to trip us up in our own final hours. It lurks there just before the finish line, waiting to hit us when we’re at our lowest. Can you hear its incessant call to avoid all suffering? Facing the increasingly gruesome hours left before His horrible death, Jesus struggled. Not even He was happy at the thought of suffering, much less the terrible suffering He knew lay in each and every step before Him that day. 

Suffering is never nice or pleasant—but it is sometimes necessary. No one in their right mind would seek it out for themselves. Yet nowhere else but in suffering will you see so clearly just what God Himself was willing to endure to find you and bring you back from a suffering far worse than mere death. For our flesh is weak indeed, and that is why these lies are so tempting. The devil wants you to know only that suffering hurts, that he can make it all go away with a painless injection and some hollow platitudes. Only sweet wine for you, never any bitter dregs if you don’t want them. And really, who does? 

After all, that little voice whispers in your ear: it’s your life, so you should get to say when you are done… But, You are my God. My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors! (Psalm 31:14-15). Ah, but this doesn’t hurt anyone else, the voice states more forcefully. Yet this is true only as long as you don’t think too long or hard about the family you leave behind to bear the grief of your decision, or the doctors you ask to kill you. Choosing death is never a harmless decision: for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning… Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image (Genesis 9:5-6). Enough, the angry cry goes up, it’s my body, my choice … But do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Before He left the upper room to face the agony of the garden, Jesus gave us the very gift that can see us through our own dark night of the soul: the gift of His own body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins…

You don’t understand, the sufferer cries out. I just can’t go on like this, I can’t face more of this. It is all just too much! And while we do not want to belittle or gloss over anyone’s pain or suffering, this is perhaps the most insidious lie of all, because you can do it… You can endure whatever suffering your Lord lays before you. You can run the race no matter how long or difficult. You can face your own Garden of Gethsemane and not fear what you are about to suffer (Revelation 2:10). You can do it because He is with you!

Our Good Shepherd walks with us all the way through this valley of the shadow of death, ready at a moment’s notice to lift us up when we have no more strength to go on. The harder it gets, the more you need to lean into Christ and say, as He Himself said to His Father: “Not what I will, but what You will” (Luke 22:42). Jesus is the secret of facing our darkest moments of suffering. He is the calm when our insides are in turmoil. He is life itself in our time of death. Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:14-15).

The Vale of Tears: Gustave Doré, 1883.

Christ faced down His own tremendous suffering and death so He might help us to face our own. He defeated the temptation to flee from suffering so you might not only have His example but the very fruit of His holy conviction. And that mercy is His everlasting covenant in His own Body and Blood. Before He left the upper room to face the agony of the garden, Jesus gave us the very gift that can see us through our own dark night of the soul: the gift of His own body and blood for the forgiveness of our sins, and the promise of paradise that awaits us after this time of suffering, pain, and grief. A foretaste of the eternal heavenly feast to come, where the cup containing the bitter dregs of Christ’s own suffering and death have become, in His resurrection and ascension, the sweetest of wine to gladden and strengthen the most troubled and suffering of souls. 

Jesus calls on you to put down this world’s sweet cup of poison and be seated instead at His heavenly feast. For the table is prepared, and it is full of the food of life. Eat and live, and like Elijah before you, get up and move forward with Christ’s divine support to hold you firm until the Lord calls you through your own cross to His heavenly home. 

No one wants to suffer. But you can’t win by quitting, and there is no dignity in running away. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life (Revelation 2:10). No matter what the devil, the world, and your own sinful flesh cry out, know this: your faithful Lord always stands ready to lift you up and help you cross that finish line to victory and rest.

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Rev. Ken Maher is pastor of Christ Our Hope Lutheran Church in Collingwood, Ontario.

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