Rounding Third and Heading for Home
Recently talking with a fine older friend, he commented that he experiences a growing sense of anticipation the more he ages. In his 80s, he sees his body declining, his energy waning and his mental acuity fading just a bit. Rather than rage against the setting sun of his vitality, he says he finds himself getting more excited about the prospect of what’s next.
Christian hope ties itself to the promise of Jesus in the now as well as to what lies over the horizon. What we see in death as a solid wall is instead a passageway. I heard a friend give a talk along these lines and likened it all to a tunnel: dark, uncertain, necessary to get from where we are to where we are going, only traveled one time but with the ultimate light at its other end.
While death comes for us all, it also carries a suitcase full of questions.
Once while facing a grieving sister, Martha, at the death of her brother when she felt Jesus could have saved him, he responds to her questioning anguish with what I envision as kind, strong words…maybe even holding her by the shoulders and looking straight into her tear-filled eyes.
Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.
Do you believe this, Martha?”
The miracle of Lazarus coming alive puts an exclamation point on his words to Martha, and really to any of us. At the same time, Jesus clearly understands how difficult an uncertain future can be in one’s heart. His last night with his apprentices, Jesus tries to allay their fears with his promise.
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”
“No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
I love the way Jesus begins this dialogue. “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” Normal and natural responses to impending death (or just thinking about any huge life change), is to be troubled, bothered, panicked, anxious.
And Jesus calls for us to be the masters of our mind and don’t let your thoughts go toward mental hand-wringing. Don’t allow it entrance. Shut the gate to your doom-scrolling bad thoughts of worst-case outcomes.
Why? God’s got this…just like everything else we face.
No one knows exactly what after-death life will be like, but we have hints scattered throughout the Book. It looks like abundance and peace and worthy work and worship and justice and seeing God face to face with every tear wiped away. Far from a period at the end of our sentence, consider it an ellipses …
And so we live until our days are finished. Our task is to live as alive as we can, not wishing away or wasting a bit of the days we have. In the back of our minds we, intellectually at least, understand that our death is sure to come, but we live with a slippery grasp on that truth.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, as he grew old and neared death, wrote as only a poet of his stature could on his journey. In a poem called Crossing the Bar, Tennyson likens moving toward his end to sailing down a river and out into the ocean beyond but needing first to cross the bar at the mouth of the river. Read this classic a couple of times.
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep,
Turns again home.Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place,
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face,
When I have crost the bar.
Crossing the bar. Traveling a necessary tunnel. Stepping through the veil. We sketch pictures we understand to try to grasp what is not understandable, yet inevitable. And living well with anticipation of what is to come make for a more full life.
Here’s the Spooky Men’s Chorale singing the words. Sweet and calming in times when “goodbye” is hard.
The monks who used Memento Mori as their motto were on to something. “Remember you must die” sets fire to the “I’ll get to it later” philosophy people of any age adopt. Now is the time. Don’t wait for tomorrow. Today is the day to flourish.
So, someday people will gather like the first image in this space and remember you after you have traveled through your tunnel. Yours. What they say will reflect how you lived, what you loved, and all in which you invested.
As believers in Jesus, we can join my friend and have both a growing anticipation of what is next, without a troubled heart, while at the same time fully engaged in life here and now.
“Remember, you will die” reminds.
“Remember, you live!” is our challenge.
And, as he ages and slows a step, my friend is still at full sail, intent on finishing well. Let’s do the same, eh?
…and thanks, Tom, for providing the title of this piece. Keep running hard toward home!
Music for the week…
Funnies for the win
A man having lunch at a Chinese restaurant noticed that the table had been set with forks, not chopsticks. He asked why. The waiter said "Chopsticks are provided only on request."
"But," the man countered, "if you gave your patrons chopsticks, you wouldn't have to pay someone to wash all the forks."
"True," the waiter shot back, "but we would have to hire three more people to clean up the mess."
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By the time Ted arrived at the football game, the first quarter was almost over.
"Why are you so late?" his friend asked.
"I had to toss a coin to decide between going to church and coming to the game."
"How long could that have taken you?" he asked.
Well, I had to toss it 14 times."