“Hope in the Face of Death”

When it comes to the subject of death, it seems that everyone has something to say:
“Do not try to live forever, you will not succeed.” (George Bernard Shaw) “He who pretends to face death without fear is lying.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau) “The meaning of life is that it stops.” (Franz Kafka) “I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” (Woody Allen) “If there are no dogs in heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.” (Will Rogers) “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!” (Hunter Thompson “Christians are people better off dead.” (Dallas Willard)

The author of Ecclesiastes has something to say about death as well: “I also said to myself, as for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from the dust, and to the dust all return.” (Ecclesiastes 3:18-20)

Needless to say, this is not the kind of Bible text that is likely to appear on an inspirational greeting card. What’s going on here?

Solomon is describing the “life under the sun”-how things look from the perspective of this world and this world only. There seems to be no grounds for believing that anything awaits us at death except nonexistence.

We can tell our children that death is entirely natural. In The Lion King, young Simba is assured that while lions eat the antelopes, all lions eventually die and fertilize the grass which provides food for the antelopes. And so we are all connected to the Great Circle of Life.

Try this instead. Be outraged. As the Irish poet Dylan Thomas wrote while watching his father die, “Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the night.” Be angry that life always ends in a cemetery.

Author and Pastor Tim Keller, who stepped into the next world just a few months ago, reminds us of one of life’s certainties: “Whatever we believe about the future absolutely controls how we live in the present.” When the author of Ecclesiastes looks toward the future, he sees no assurances. He finds no hope. Shakespeare’s Hamlet concurs. He describes death as “the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns.”

What does Jesus say about death? “I am the resurrection and the life”, He announces while standing in a cemetery. “The one who believes in me will live, even though they die. And whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26) What does that mean?

Something big awaits us. Solomon can’t see it, but Jesus assures his followers that we’re heading instead for the Big Celebration. The next world will provide a reunion like no other-a welcome home party.

Whether or not that means we’ll get to stand alongside Will Rogers and be surrounded by dogs is just one of the mysteries that will finally and joyfully be resolved.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Not Forgotten”

It’s a dreadful thing to be forgotten. For some people, the very fear of that thing is a real thing. It’s called athazagoraphobia-the fear that no one will remember who I am or what I have done, or that I ever had a place in this world.

Solomon understood. At the very end of a list of laments about the meaninglessness of life “under the sun”—that is, in this world and this world alone—he makes this observation: “No one remembers the former generations, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.” (Ecclesiastes 1:11)

We admit that athazagoraphobia isn’t entirely irrational. Many fears are focused on things that realistically aren’t going to do us in. That would include ranidaphobia (fear of frogs), and hexakosiohekontahexaphobia (a paralyzing fear of the number 666).

But in point of fact, you really are going to be forgotten. Within five or six generations, it’s almost certain that no one in your family tree will have a sense of the “real you”—what made you tick, what made you laugh, what made you get up in the morning. It doesn’t take nearly as long to be forgotten in the workplace. “Institutional amnesia” will set in within a few weeks of your departure from the office. Won’t anyone remember that you were once Employee of the Month, and that you had such great ideas at team meetings, and that you saved the company from that third quarter financial disaster? Probably not.

In this world, you really are going to be forgotten. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Well that’s not entirely true.

You can attempt to be famous. Try to set a world record that will be hard to break. Or produce a work of art that will be appreciated for centuries. Or write some amazing words that a handful of admirers will read over and over again. Or you can try to be infamous. Do something outrageous, illegal or tragically unforgettable.

Athazagoraphobia leads some people to forfeit their character and even their lives if only they will be remembered.

The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1882) is best remembered, ironically, for his sonnet about a once-great world leader who is now no longer remembered, even though he did everything in his power to preserve his legacy. The poem is called “Ozymandias”.

It’s no wonder Solomon opens his book with the words, “Meaningless! Meaningless!
Everything is utter meaningless”. But here, for the first time we take issue with Solomon. That’s because if you have come to know Jesus, then you know more than the wisest king in the Old Testament.

We may ultimately be forgotten “under the sun” here in this world. But followers of Jesus have good reason to believe that life isn’t over when it’s over. And where there is life there is memory. Our Heavenly Father declares through Isaiah: “Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you!” (Isaiah49:15) And the Apostle Paul, writing to the young believers in Corinth, says, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then (that is in the next world we shall see face to face, Now I know in part; then I shall know fully even as I am fully known”. (I Corinthians 13:12)

To be in God’s presence is to be known. And to be “remembered” in the sense that God fully pays attention to all our moments- in this world and the next.

You know that fear that may strike you from time to time- the lurking suspicion that no one really knows who you are, and that no one will ever remember you were even here?

By God’s grace you can forget about it.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

 

“Here Comes the Judge”

Author and business executive Stephen Covey recounted a Sunday morning subway ride he took years ago in New York City. “People were sitting quietly-some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene.” Then a man stepped into the subway with young children. The kids seemed unhinged. They were loud. They were throwing things. They grabbed people’s newspapers.

Covey was amazed. The father just sat there a few feet away, oblivious. He did nothing. “It was difficult not to feel irritated,” Covey remembered. Why wouldn’t this man assume responsibility for what was happening. Summoning what he felt was an unusual degree of patience and restraint, Covey finally turned to the man and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?”

With that the man seemed to emerge from a fog. “Oh, you’re right,” he said. “I guess I should do something about it.” Then he added: “We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think and I guess I don’t know how to handle it either.”

In an instant everything changed.

The man Covey had judged to be a slacker father was in truth a suffering father experiencing one of the worst days of his life. Covey brimming with compassion, could only respond, “How can I help?”

There is good reason why Jesus warns us not to judge other people (Matthew 7:12): We never know the whole story. On this side of Heaven, we never can know the whole story. Here we need to pause and affirm that normal life requires a seemingly unending series of judgements concerning other people. Who’s the best mechanic to fix your car’s water pump? Who do you want babysitting your kids this weekend? Who will be elected mayor in your hometown this November? Which spiritual teacher is giving you the best counsel concerning your soul?

Such questions demand wise responses. We will definitely have to make some judgments. So what are we supposed to do with Jesus’ teaching? The best answer is to differentiate between discernment and hypocritical judgement. The Bible commands the former. Wise discernment should be a lifelong pursuit for everyone.

But if, with a critical spirit, we judge the habits, character, and motivations of other people-operating on the assumption that we know the whole story, and have a firm grasp on what is “appropriate” for every situation, and have no glaring defects in our own habits, character, or motivations, we will find ourselves sinking fast into spiritual quicksand.

There is of course, someone who knows the whole story of every person you will meet today. And Your whole story too. That someone is God. And God makes it pretty easy for us to know what to do when we find ourselves in the presence of other people who seem truly messed up.

Just love them.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

“Rogue Waves”

Ancient mariners were famous for their stories of peril on the high seas.  They spoke of the
multi-tentacled Kraken that splintered whole ships; a vortex called the Maelstrom that pulled
vessels down a kind of oceanic drain; a precipitous drop-off where the flat earth came to its
edge; and warlike mermaids not likely to end up in a Disney animated film.  In the 21 st century
we can safely say such accounts were just fanciful myths.

But one other enduring “tall tale” has proven to be all too real:  the rogue wave.  Rogue waves
are defined as walls of water more than twice the size of other waves in the vicinity.  Sailors
have been reporting such monsters or killer waves for centuries.  Such stories were typically
dismissed as nonsense.

But consider the wave that hit the Eagle Island Lighthouse along the Irish coast on March 11,
1861.  The lighthouse sits a full 200 feet above the high water mark.  At midday, for no
apparent reason, an incredible wave of water suddenly materialized and slammed into the
main tower, breaking the glass at the very top and flooding the interior.  That was a 20-story-
tall monster.

Despite such evidence, scientists stubbornly held to the view that seeing isn’t always
believing. All that changed in 1995, when oceanographers were finally in the right place at
the right time to measure the so-called Draupner wave, a rogue wave at least 84 feet high
that slammed into the Draupner oil platform in the North Sea.

Today it is widely accepted that monster waves are not only real, but are probably rising
somewhere on the planet at any given moment.  They are frightening-not only because they
are unpredictable, but because they have demonstrated capacity to do significant damage.
It’s possible that many of the ships (both large and small) that have vanished without a trace
over the centuries were lost to rogue waves that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

How do they originate?  Researchers have learned that most ocean waves move
independently of one another.  But every now and then a “pack” of waves will form a coherent
group.  In a process called modulation instability, all the waves in a group pour the energy into
a single rogue.  With little or no warning, a towering mass appears.  Then it collapses and
disappears quickly as it formed.

Every now and then it can seem as if a “rogue wave” of a different sort suddenly smashes into
our lives.

Lots of little frustrations-each of them independently manageable-come together at the same
time.  A sick child.  A malfunctioning air conditioner.  Smoke from Canadian fires.  Financial
problems.  That moron who cut you off in traffic.  An emotionally charged argument with
someone you love.  That’s all it takes. Without warning you feel as if you are drowning.

There are no rogue wave verses in the Bible.  But we do have this word from King David,
who, in a moment of desperation wrote:  “Save me O God, for the floodwaters have come up
to my neck”. (Psalm 69:1)

There is no wave too high, or ocean abyss so deep, that we can ever find ourselves beyond
God’s reach.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain