Category Archives: Life and death

Milestones

20 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in Christmas, December, Jesus Christ, Life and death

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“In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”

* * *

One definition listed for “milestone” is “an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development.” It seems that as humans we like to do that, to mark our passage through life, our achievements, to measure our progress. Today is my 75th birthday, a definite historical milestone for me.

It’s interesting how we quantify time in our lives. Young children boast about their age counting by single specific years. “I’m five, but I’m gunna be six,” or seven or eight. Later it’s a bit more reluctant and less specific, by the decade: in my twenties, thirties, forty-ish. At this juncture I can gauge my lifespan by quarter-century marks, three of them! Yikes. That’s a lot of water under the bridge as they say, some of it a peaceful meandering stream, and at other times a raging torrent.

The Bible’s Book of James says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” James is probably testifying to Psalm 144:4 which says, “Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.” But as we all know, some folk’s shadows disappear more quickly than others. Just a while back the local 10 o’clock news reported on the tragic death of a nine-year-old boy struck by a car and killed on his way home from school. Changing to a more upbeat tone, the news anchor’s next item to report was the celebration of a great-grandmother’s 102nd birthday. What a perplexing paradox. On the eve of my birthday five years ago I lost a dear friend to an accidental death. He was just 26, an Army vet who had served without a scratch in Afghanistan. I was hoping to have years of buddy time together, but sadly it was not to be. Last year right before Thanksgiving a young man I was just starting to get to know better without warning took his own life. It’s this cruel disparity in the days of our lives that makes me scratch my spiritual head and wonder, Hey, what’s this all about anyway? How does God decide when to click the stopwatch on and off?

Although we like to think otherwise, much of what happens in the universe remains a mystery, the answers known only to God. I do believe, however, He gives us enough information and guidance to live out our allotted time on this planet as well as we can. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom,” prays the writer of Psalm 90, traditionally attributed to Moses, who himself lived to be 120. It is wise, then, to be aware of our ever impending mortality.

In thinking about writing this post, I remembered the lines quoted above in the intro from T.S. Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, the poem’s subject lamenting that his life basically amounts to nothing other than the droll repetition of one uneventful, insignificant day after another. As with any piece of art or literature, there are critics and a variety of interpretations. One such commentator on the poem writes, “The image of the coffee spoon is one of middle-class domesticity. The idea of measuring one’s life with such an instrument implies a lack of risk or excitement; instead of big decisions or milestone events defining the course of his life, all Prufrock has with which to mark his time on earth is the quotidian coffee spoon.” That, my friends, is a real tragedy. A purposeless, unfulfilled, empty life isn’t life at all, but a painfully prolonged expectation of one’s ultimate termination in the grave, when time mercifully runs out.

In a complete contrast, the Bible is full of advice on profitable time management, just one of the keys to a life worth living. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). How relevant is that age-old advice today! [Go to https://www.openbible.info/topics/time_management for many more examples.]

Life can be anything but mundane. Shouldn’t we then treasure every minute we have, to vigorously live out the destiny God so graciously offers us, to leave a legacy of faith and love behind to our family, friends and neighbors? Even at this late stage of my life I want to “get a heart of wisdom,” and to learn how to properly “number our days.” Personally, with that perspective put into practice, I’m hoping for more than a measure of coffee spoons to be recorded on my tombstone. What about you?

Will you make this Christmas season the most important milestone in your life with a decision to believe that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to save us all from a purposeless life and to give you eternal hope? Don’t let this moment of opportunity pass. Follow the spiritual star of divine inspiration leading to your personal encounter with the Savior. Sing from a truly happy heart for the very first time,
O come all ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant
O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him
Born the King of Angels
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

Forced to Face the Inevitable

12 Sunday Apr 2020

Posted by in Easter, Jesus Christ, Life and death, pandemic, resurrection

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A subject no one ever wants to think about has now been unavoidably thrust in front of our faces: death. The COVID-19 virus and its potentially fatal consequences have captured the headlines and newscasts, hour after endless hour, reporting infections and death tolls ticking upward incessantly. Regardless of whom we might blame as the perpetrator, Pandora’s Pandemic Box has been opened, the dreadful contents let loose like invisible dogs of war, aggressively stalking us at every turn, every time we get within less than six feet of another possibly asymptomatic human being.

Of course this is not the first time our species has dealt with the onslaught of a rampant global disease. Nature at its most virulent has been against us ever since we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. The Sixth Century’s Bubonic Plague is thought to have killed up to 25 million people, perhaps half the population of Europe, in its year long reign of terror. The infamous Black Plague (1346-1353) ravaged three continents, with an estimated death toll between 75 and 200 million people, thanks to rats and fleas invading urban ports from merchant ships. In more recent times, the Spanish Flu of 1918, tragically just after the horrific suffering and death of World War I, infected over a third of the world’s population, ending the lives of an additional 20 to 50 million people. Adding to the list nameless outbreaks of cholera, smallpox and influenza, it makes me wonder how any of us have survived this far. Science and medicine are the obvious difference makers; the experts, however, are yet struggling with a remedy to the scourge dominating our particular time in history.

Looking at examples of macabre artwork produced during the Middle Ages, especially in times of rampant disease, it appears that most folks must have been quite accustomed to sickness, the dying and the dead, accepting even death itself, personified by dark shrouded figures and animated skeletons, as a familiar part of everyday life.

Most civilizations and cultures throughout history have proposed their own particular interpretation of what happens after man’s fateful final moment. The suppositions are limitless. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death and preparing for the voyage into the hereafter, spending what could be seen as an irrational amount of time and treasure to insure those who could afford it a safe passage into the great beyond. Vikings reveled in the hope that death brought them into Valhalla, the great hall in Norse mythology where heroes enjoy an eternity with Thor and their fellow warriors in endless opportunities to feast and battle. Many English Romantic Period writers lamented over whether or not the grave might be the end. Poets like Blake, Wordsworth and Keats all hopefully portrayed death as possibly a new beginning, the doorway to a happier life. In his poem “On Death,” Shelley ponders,
“Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?”

By sickness, accident or natural causes, we all come inevitably to our own death. The question is, then, how will we prepare?

Today as the Christian world celebrates what is commonly called Easter, I personally am believing and take comfort in the words of an ancient hymn sung by the church down through the centuries as a Paschal Troparion in the liturgy to celebrate Resurrection Sunday:
“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and on those in the tombs bestowing life!”

And thus we find the answer to Shelley’s poetic query.

At this difficult time when the realities of life and death are more pressing than usual, may I suggest, if you have not done so, that you pause to examine the claims of Jesus Christ. He said He would rise from the dead (Matt. 16:21). He promises eternal life to anyone who would but believe in Him (John 5:24). He states that because He died and now lives, He alone holds the keys to death and the afterlife (Rev. 1:18). He declares that He is the only way to a right relationship with God (John 14:6). These astonishing assertions are either true or false. Being made aware of these statements, one must make a decision about Jesus. He is either the Son of God who came to save sinners (John 3:16) or He was a delusional maniac, and if so, then not even worthy of being characterized as just another religious “good teacher.”

Writing to the young church in Rome, the apostle Paul summed up the prerequisites for the assurance of an eternal life with Christ after death: “. . . if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9-10) Saved from what? you might ask. This “salvation” is so much more than a “get out of hell for free” card. The biblical word carries with it the meaning of wholeness, pardon, restoration, healing, and soundness in spirit, soul and body, freedom from the penalty of sin (Romans 5:9-10) and from the dominion of sin in this life (Romans 6:14). It’s being “born again” as a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17)!

“In [God’s] great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Because of the unfathomable love of God, the grave could not hold the crucified Christ. Death has been defeated and the grave will be forced to likewise ultimately release all those who believe in Him (Romans 8:11).

What better time than now to make a decision, to be certain that whatever this life presents, whether it be the distress of a plague or the blessings of peace and prosperity, your eternal heavenly destiny beyond this mortal life can be secured by simple, childlike faith in the Risen Christ! I pray you choose rightly today.

Remembering The Titanic’s First and Last Voyage

10 Wednesday Apr 2019

Posted by in Life and death, Titanic

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A local TV news and weather channel’s app on my phone includes other features of interest, one being “This Day In History.” After scanning the headlines about last night’s shootings, car wrecks and warnings about yet another oncoming winter storm to hit the Great Plains, I scrolled down to read that on April 10, 1912, “The Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic Ocean headed for New York City.”

Billed as the ship that “not even God could sink,” after the starboard side of the RMS Titanic struck the iceberg it took only two hours and 40 minutes for her to disappear under the eerily placid waters of the Atlantic about 375 miles south of Newfoundland. The White Star Line’s much acclaimed 46,300-ton truly titanic luxury vessel sank, along with more than 1,500 passengers, 1,200 pudding dishes, 1,000 oyster forks, 400 asparagus tongs and countless other miscellaneous comfort items to the bottom of the sea.

The winter of 1911-1912 had been unusually mild. Higher-than-normal temperatures in the North Atlantic had caused more icebergs to drift away from the west coast of Greenland than at any time in the previous 50 years. If not for that one unseasonably warm winter, perhaps the Titanic might never have had an iceberg to hit.

It has been noted that wireless operators aboard had received warnings from other vessels in the area about large concentrations of icebergs in the area. The fact that the fateful, fatal collision might have been avoided makes the disaster even more tragic.

Billy Graham is quoted as remarking that “The greatest surprise in life to me is the brevity of life.” Surprised would be an understatement in the minds of passengers swallowed up in the frigid waters and those fortunate few clinging to lifeboats that night, never imagining that tomorrow might not come.

Perhaps the adage “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” is a notion we should realize every day, like the Roman poet Horace exclaims, “Carpe diem!” or “seize the day.” The New Testament writer James says, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” Life can be portrayed as brief, no matter how many or how few birthdays we have experienced on this planet. The way we choose to interpret that precious span of days or years makes the biggest difference, especially when trying to understand senseless tragedies, like the sinking of the Titanic.

It seems that we can go either of two ways. We can numb ourselves in guiltless hedonism, if like Shakespeare’s Macbeth, we perceive life as not much more than “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I prefer instead to believe that I have a purpose, that God values my existence as expressed in the well-known verse of John 3:16, and that both joy and suffering are elemental aspects of my allotted time here on earth. I side then with noted 19th Century Baptist preacher and evangelist Charles Spurgeon who wrote, “Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.” Well-read in scripture undoubtedly he was familiar with Psalm 90 which says, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Let us then be wise. Eternity is a long time to be foolish about anything.

End of (My) Days

21 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in Life and death, poem, winter

≈ 1 Comment

During the winter months,
the afternoon daylight hours
are just never long enough.
When I watch the sun slip down
behind the neighborhood rooftops
I sometimes feel a bit somber.

The onset of dusk shows my eyes
what the clock says to my mind ––
time is running through my fingers
like sand through the popular
daytime TV soap opera hourglass.
And “so are the days of our lives.”

Old age has a subtle way of steadily
creeping up on me, like nightfall.
Streaks of cirrus clouds become a
canvas of bright orange and purple
watercolors running together in the
western sky, gradually fading into
ghostly shadows of gray. Finally,
a smothering blanket of darkness
unfolds from the east, dousing
the last hint of daylight.

I think it may be God’s way of daily
reminding me that sooner or later,
the final curtain of my life will
eventually drop at the end of
the last act. I can only hope for
at least a few moments of applause
and a somewhat favorable review
of my performance.

The Prince of Peace is a Warrior

25 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by in Christmas, Christmas Day, Jesus Christ, Life and death, Messiah, Prophecy

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Every Christmas season you can count on some variation of a nativity scene to make its annual appearance, pulled out of a storage box in the closet onto someone’s family room tabletop or a life-sized version all aglow welcoming church goers to holiday services.

Looking at “the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay” one might not think about spiritual warfare as an aspect of an “all is calm, all is bright” Christmas. It seems incongruous — that is, until we look at the whole picture. Thirty-three years later, the long-awaited savior, “born of a virgin” (Isaiah 7:14) “in the city of Bethlehem” (Micah 5:2), had fulfilled hundreds of additional Messianic prophesies about his life, death and resurrection, the earliest being found in Genesis 3:15. God tells the serpent, who had just beguiled Adam and Eve into sin, that One is coming Who will “crush your head.” Thus the battle began. The alarm was sounded, echoing around heaven and earth and to all who revel in darkness: My Anointed is coming. Coming to rescue and reconcile, to renew what was lost and broken, and to defeat the enemy of our souls and even death itself. Isaiah’s prophesied Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) is just as much a warrior. (Isaiah 42:13)

“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil,” 1 John 3:8 reports. In plain terms then, Christmas celebrates the much anticipated arrival of God’s own Son to ransom the captives, advance His kingdom and take back what the enemy stole away. (Isaiah 61:1-3) That sounds like warfare to me. Revelation 13:8 states the Lamb of God was “slain from the foundation of the world.” Long before Adam even fell, the rescue mission was ready to roll out, “in the fullness of time.” (Galatians 4:4)

So this season, in the midst of all the bright lights and candles, carols and shopping, all the baking and decorating and gift giving, maybe we should remember that from the day of His conception, Jesus was on a seek and save, search and destroy mission on our behalf so that we might declare “thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15:57)

I wish all my readers the best Spirit-filled Christmas ever. May you recognize that a foreshadowing of the cross was cast upon the manger crib at that first nativity, and that the Christmas Story is fulfilled at Calvary. But it doesn’t end there. For those who believe, the story never ends. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) One of my favorite Christmas carols is Charles Wesley’s “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” It includes the lyrics “God and sinners reconciled.” That’s the gospel message in a nutshell, the “Good News.” May you find comfort and joy in that realization today. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

*The artwork featured is from a 6th Century mosaic in a chapel in Ravenna, Italy, titled Christ the Warrior. 

Making sense out of a senseless universe

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Happiness, Life and death, religion

≈ 2 Comments

Truth is, some folks can’t. Hopeless victims of desperate circumstance become statistics on suicide, taking themselves out of the game rather than endure another day of mental and emotional anguish. Like funny man Robin Williams. Hangs himself with his own belt. Show’s over folks. Nuthin’ more to see here. One would presume that a guy like him had it all. Family, fame, fortune. Ironically, as is the case with so many comedians like Johnny Carson and Jerry Lewis, happiness was a commodity all the money in the world couldn’t buy. Addictions, depression, broken marriages. It’s what the Smokey Robinson 1971 song is all about. “Just like Pagliacci did/I try to keep my sadness hid/Smiling in the public eye/But in my lonely room I cry/The tears of a clown/When there’s no one around.” It makes me wonder how many people actually “lead lives of quiet desperation . . .” as Thoreau wrote, wondering Why am I here and does it even matter? “. . . and go to the grave with the song still in them.”

The struggle to find and embrace significance is a prominent theme in religion, art, music, literature and everything human because it’s common to us all. It’s what we need in order to fall asleep at night, and to have a reason to get back out of bed every morning. It’s what we need to make it all worthwhile, to keep us out of the closet with a belt.

In our civilization’s ongoing quest for the meaning of life, history shows that we’ve postulated just about every theory possible, from plausible to absurd. Of course the most common efforts for explaining human existence can be found in your basic Religion 101 class along with an elective course in Introductory Philosophy thrown in. Every culture has come up with some kind of rationale to keep us from teetering into the abyss of nihilism, some sort of system with a god or gods or a higher power out there somewhere. Most ancient legends and epic narratives portray mythological deities as more human-like than divine – capricious, contriving, scandalous, fated by their faults and failures. Not much help there.

Today’s most popular options on the Religions of the World Chart have billions of followers. The self-discipline of The Buddha teaches us to meditate our way to enlightenment. Apparently many have not yet located their happy place. Or there’s the ethical politeness of Confucianism, with yin and yang, energy in constant balance, in perfect harmony, separate but equal. Which side of the taijitu are you on? Let’s crack open a couple fortune cookies and find out.

Hinduism keeps us trapped under the law of karma on a continual treadmill cycle of reincarnation. Please, just show me the way out. Remember John Lennon’s lyrics? “Instant Karma’s gonna get you/Gonna knock you right on the head/You better get yourself together/Pretty soon you’re gonna be dead.” Aren’t we all.

Even the Judaeo-Christian God of the Bible doesn’t find it necessary to explain everything. So much is hidden, mysterious, full of paradox and subjective interpretation. Not bashful about voicing complaints to the Lord about the problem of evil and suffering, psalmist King David lamented about the apparent injustices of life, that the wicked seemed to prosper while the righteous endured adversity without cause. Eventually, says the Lord, everyone will get what’s due. But for now, just wait. Have faith. Trust. Believe. I’m in control.

I think science, with all of its benefits to society and advances to be enjoyed, has coincidentally made it harder to exercise that kind of faith. Microscopes and telescopes allow us to see through that curtain of curiosity, inward and outward to worlds unimaginable. Actually, splitting the atom raises more questions than answers. Billions of galaxies spinning in an incredibly vast expanse of space reveal an intelligent designer with an extravagant sense of creativity. But why? What does it matter to me? I have a mortgage to pay and a car that needs a new muffler. By the way, what’s for dinner?

The premise of order and meaning in what we see and cannot see becomes strained, however, when our most well-intentioned spiritual convictions begin to evaporate under intense pressure. Holding on to or defending a belief system becomes especially trying when our most fervent, faith-filled, selfless prayers go unanswered. Or when we hear that a drunk driver crossed the median and plowed into a school bus full of kids returning from church camp. Several dead, dozens injured and scarred for life.

Or when an honest, hard-working man gets fired for something that wasn’t even remotely his fault. The company goes on to post record profits. Keep your resumés updated, people. Or when the poster child for perfect health and fitness drops dead while jogging. I can see the obituary now: Age 32, faithful husband, provider, father of three, gone in a whisper.

What we need is an operator’s manual, a guideline for troubleshooting through all the possible scenarios that interrupt our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Don’t you wish that there could be an easy way to get explanations for the jack-in-the-box surprises that explode in our faces? Maybe like an Ask Abby column in the newspaper. Just write out a description of your problem. Drop it in the cosmic mailbox, and then wait for the morning news to get your answer. “Dear Desperate and Confused Planet Earth Dweller. Thanks for your letter. Here’s my advice: Leave your spouse. Move to a new town. Reconcile with your mother-in-law. Then all will be well.” Or how about a 1-800 number. “Hello, um, yes. I’d like to order a better life. Yeah, one for my four-year-old girl, the one with leukemia. And could you express ship that, please? We’re running out of time.”

There seems to be enough weeping and gnashing of teeth here in this world even before the doors of heaven close for good. So what’s left? Shaking a fist at the sky? Languishing like Job, a mere pawn in a spiritual game of chess, waiting for the final checkmate to see who wins the tournament?

Isn’t it true that often we find it so much easier to “Praise God from Whom all blessings flow” when the colonoscopy test results are negative, when the bonus shows up on the paycheck, when the college scholarship is a full four-year free ride? For me it becomes a bit more challenging when I’m calling to schedule a root canal, or when I hear about my dear friends’ baby’s death, or when someone I love is struggling to deal with impossible odds against them and I can’t help fix it. Sometimes I want to write a letter back to the New Testament’s James and say, “You know that count it all joy through trials thing? Wow, that’s a tough teaching, brother!” In reality, it’s probably an impossible perspective to learn and live without a proper spiritual frame of mind, without a strong conviction in the goodness of a God Who knows me personally and desires the best for me. Unconditionally.

Last week I faced head-on an inexplicable tragedy that once again leaves me empty for answers to the ever-nagging question of “Why?”

Tyler, a good buddy of mine, came to an untimely, sudden, violent accidental death. When someone we know is diagnosed as terminal, or is old and feeble, we know the end is eventually coming; death is stalking at the door, and we are somewhat emotionally prepared when the plug is pulled. But when a vibrant, active, happy 24-year-old combat vet full of passion for life is gone in seconds, it becomes harder to wrap our heads around. Maybe we can’t. That’s why it’s so vexing. So troubling, so disturbing, and especially so much more painful now during a time reserved for the expression of peace, joy and holiday cheer.

I am deeply grieved at his passing, but I heard something during the funeral eulogy that might help me get through this. Encouraging the bereaved to stay strong through the heartache of this calamity, his pastor quoted from Chapter 5 of Paul’s Letter to the Romans. I like The Message version:

“We [those who are true followers of Christ] continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!”

Several key ideas here to ponder out of many: “ . . . for whatever God will do next.” Reality check: This is God’s universe, and so far He hasn’t consulted with me for my opinion of His agenda. Maybe I need to reread the final five chapters of the Book of Job. “Then the Lord said to Job, ‘Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.’” (Job 40:1-2) KJV

I may never know all the reasons why life seems at times to unravel into a helpless heap, like a laundry basket full of soiled clothes. Hard to admit it sometimes but I will find myself in a better place when I acknowledge Who is really in control. That being said, as I develop passionate patience I suspect that God and I will continue to have serious conversations regarding my perplexities, my pain and my frustration when I’m hemmed in with troubles. I need to learn how to bear up better in the fiery forge tempering my soul. Instead of shortchanged, I need to see myself abundantly blessed, my containers ready to overflow with enough hope to spill over onto those who are desperate for a reason to carry on through their own heap of troubles.

I’m going to have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year because, in spite of my time of grief and loss concurring hand-in-hand with this season of Comfort and Joy, I choose to hope that all things will ultimately work together for good (Rom. 8:28), and to see that from God’s perspective, nothing in this universe is ever senseless.

Tetelestai

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by in crucifixion, Good Friday, Jesus Christ, Life and death, Messiah

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On a day we remember as Good Friday, Jesus came to the end of His mission as savior of the world on the cross when he exclaimed, “It is finished.” The Greek translation sums up the exclamation so well in one word: tetelestai, a word used in the ancient commercial world on business documents or receipts indicating that a debt had been paid –– in full. Interestingly, the word in John’s gospel is in a tense used to describe an action that has been completed in the past with results continuing into the present. It conveys an idea that has happened and it is still in effect today. Contemporary readers of John’s record of Christ’s last moments would have understood the comparison he intended to make. The new covenant blood shed by the Lamb of God once and for all paid for that which the old covenant blood of bulls and goats could only cover up.

So far removed from the events and culture of the Bible, for most of us today the theology dealing with God’s sentence of death as the inevitable result of sin and the only acceptable recompense being the sacrifice of an innocent victim to pay the price of redemption can be difficult to grasp. That’s why many old time hymns are so much better at explaining complex spiritual realities than a hundred learned commentaries. The words for the following classic example were written in 1865 by Elvina Hall, a member of the Monument Street Methodist Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

I pray you will agree indeed that Jesus Paid It All.

cano_alonso-zzz-crucifixionI hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”
Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.
For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.
When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

Perspective

04 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by in Jesus Christ, Life and death, poem

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There has to be something
better than this.
Sometimes I weep. How can there be
so much beauty and so much horror?
But my pensive lamentations are nothing
compared to those who literally suffer
without comfort.

In my own good fortune I dream in peace
through the night hours and the clock
always starts over at dawn.
Breakfast and coffee smell good and
I eat until I’m full. I enjoy art and nature.
Music is inspiring. It elevates my soul.
Our family is close. Love makes me warm all over.
I have everything I need, and some extras.
Even so, I am restless. Discontent. Doubtful.

Dale Carnegie and the Bible both say
You are what you think,
so then I should fill my head with positivity.
I need to get that half-empty glass to half-full.
Maybe things would be different though if I weren’t
scrambling to make up for my losses,
trying to repair the damage of too many decades,
running on borrowed time, helplessly watching
calendar pages fly away in the wind,
the grave always laughing in my face.

Have you ever noticed that children and dogs
have no regard for their ultimate end?
Is it better that way? No concern with eschatology?
I know why the Egyptians were so preoccupied
with prepping for the afterlife.
It’s because death looks so final.
We just cannot seem to accept that inescapable
last scenario, even if we try to invent a better one.
And as far as I know, only one person has come back
from the other side, the One who was dead
and is now alive forevermore,
to give us a glimmer of hope,
that there actually is something
better than this.

I thought prison was bad enough.

19 Monday Jan 2015

Posted by in Life and death

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Last week, on January 14 a prison transport vehicle carrying 15 people skidded off a Texas highway overpass and plunged into the path of a moving freight train. After the collision, the bus was dragged for about 200 yards along the tracks before coming to a complete stop. Officials concluded that icy roads were to blame for the crash. Two correctional officers and eight inmates died from injuries suffered in the accident.

One of the victims, 29 year-old inmate Tyler Townsend had called his mother in Benbrook the night before. “I said, ‘Let’s pray for a safe journey. Call me Sunday night,’ ” Petra Townsend recalled. “He said, ‘OK.’ ”  “I said, ‘I love you.’ He told me he loved me too, and that was it.”

She admitted that her son chose his own journey outside of the law early on, using drugs as a teenager. He went to prison twice before, for drugs and other crimes, including car theft, but managed to graduate from an alternative school, and even tried college. “I always believed he was going to change that path,” his mother told reporters. She felt that Tyler believed it, too. Sentenced to three years, Tyler was denied an early release on Dec. 28, and was scheduled to come back home next January.

A deeply religious woman, Mrs. Townsend said her son had recently been baptized in prison. She said her faith does not have room for laying blame for her son’s death. “That’s part of a plan we can’t understand. This is God’s business. This is God,” she repeated. “No, no, no. Don’t question.”

I am fairly certain that none of the men involved in this tragedy woke up that morning and expected to end up later that day in a box. Talk about bad timing – the weather, an icy overpass, the train schedule. But when it comes to death, what would be good timing? Maybe if you are 98 and languishing in a nursing home with a worn out shell of a body and a mind that long ago faded away into faint shadows of the past?

I’m going to file this story in a folder I call “My Last Breath is . . . When?” It’s a collection of news items that address the utter frailty of life, and our reluctance to admit or expect just how quickly it can change or even cease. I may post a few of those reports as time goes on. For now, considering my own inevitable fate I must reluctantly acquiesce, concurring with the admonition from James 4:14: “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”