Parashat Chukat: Bringing the Living to Death

In Parashat Chukat we learn that Moses and Aaron have been condemned to die before reaching the promised land of Canaan. God's sentence is rather abrupt, since we're not really told what the reason is for such harsh punishment.
I found a very moving midrash that tries to mitigate this abruptness: Moses studies Torah in chevruta with his brother and breaks the news of his impending demise by weaving Aaron's death into the story of the world (all the mistakes in translation are mine):

The Holy One Blessed Be He said to Moses "Do me a favor and tell Aaron about his death, because I’m ashamed to tell him myself".
Said Rabbi Huna in the name of Rabbi Tanchuma bar Chyia, what did Moses do? He got up at dawn and went to Aaron and started calling "Aaron my brother". Aaron came down and said: "What did you see that made you get up so early and come here today?" Said Moses "I was pondering a matter [דבר] from the Torah overnight and had a very hard time with it and that's why I got up and came to you. He said to him: "And what was that matter?" Moses replied: "I don't know what it was, but I do know it's in the book of Genesis; bring it over and let's read in it." So they took the book of Genesis and read in it parasha after parasha and about each of them he said "He did well, He created well, the Holy One Blessed Be He and when they got to the creation of Man he said "And what can one say about Man, who brought death into the world" and Aaron said "Moses, my brother, you don't want to say now that the matter that brought you here is that we shouldn't accept God's decree?" And they read on [about the great things God did for Adam and Eve] and he was told "For you are dust" and Moses said to him "After all this praise it still came down to that [ie Adam and Eve were condemned to mortality] and Aaron said to Moses "And I who have ruled over the angels and you who stopped death, isn't our fate going to be the same? How many years do we have left to live? Twenty?" and Moses said "Less" and Aaron kept going lower and lower until he got to the day of his death. And immediately Aaron felt the touch of death in his bones and said "Moses, perhaps the matter that bothered you last night was about me". And Moses said "Yes".(Yalkut Shimoni, Chukat)