Let's Not Miss the Abundance

 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." 

I used to misunderstand Jesus's words in John 10:10. I thought it meant something like "I came so that you can have a great life." But abundant isn't a synonym for great. It means full. One commentator described it as a rich fullness that nourishes the spiritual life. 

I'm not sure that you can have a full life until you've experienced death, up close and personal. 

In the past week, I've looked death eyeball to eyeball. My father-in-law, who has been hospitalized with COVID-related pneumonia for the past two months, came home last Monday. We weren't sure what to expect. Would being at home, which he longed for, aid to his recovery? Or were we bringing him home to die? Were we at the beginning of a long journey, or was this the end? We didn't know, but we knew we had to try it and see, even though "trying it" meant intense round-the-clock care by his wife and children. By Saturday, we had our answer. God had a different Home for Grandpa J. 

There is no greater way to realize the significance of life than to see how hard the body fights to stay alive. In one sense, death is natural, because it happens to all of us. But in another sense, it is totally unnatural. The body does not want to die. It won't give up without a fight. Life is a very strong force. 

While I did very little to serve him in his final week, I was there enough to remember what a holy space this is. In my estimation, there is nothing holier on earth. I know of nothing more sacred than the privilege of caring for someone in their final days. "Sacred" means to inspire awe or reverence. I was drenched in awe and reverence the past week. I've stood in some of the world's grandest cathedrals and felt nothing. I've stood in the bedrooms of the dying and felt the holy presence of God so powerfully that it's all I could do just to stand. Awe and reverence. Abundance of life. It was all there on Friday. 

Our modern world robs us of this abundant experience. The majority of people die in nursing homes and hospitals, tended by professional staff for whom death is just part of the job. Dying at home today is almost a luxury. It can only happen for the most well-resourced among us. My father-in-law was not a wealthy man, but he was rich with family, and that family was willing to sacrifice work, spouses, kids, sleep, and the natural desire to emotionally self-protect in order to care for him day and night. 

There is obvious blessing in Grandpa getting to die in his own house surrounded by the people he loves. But it's more than that. There is blessing like no other when we are elbow-deep in caring for someone at the end of life. There is a "rich fullness that nourishes the spiritual life" that can't be found anywhere else. We don't choose this; it chooses us. When it does, I don't want to hide physically, emotionally, or spiritually. I want to show up and say, "Meet me with your grace, Lord." And He does. So much grace, the kind of grace you can feel like a thick, soft blanket on a cold day.   

We don't want to miss this. We don't want to run from death. We want this life abundant, even when abundance in the moment looks more like suffering and less like joy. 

I looked at my youngest daughter and my nieces standing by the bedside with me--two of them young teenagers, one a young adult, and one a little girl with a mouth full of missing teeth--and I said something, maybe not as coherently as I wanted, like, "Death is not scary. It's part of living. Don't be scared of this. It's the beautiful process through which Grandpa is entering heaven." One of them said, "Tell Jesus hi for us, Grandpa." Yes, they get it! Death is not winning here. Death loses. Life wins. And it's beautiful, no matter how ugly it looks. 

Death comes to steal and kill and destroy. Jesus comes offering life in all its abundance. Eternal life for Grandpa and a richly nourished spiritual life for those of us who were with him at the end. Holy. Sacred. Not to be missed.  

"Where, O death, is your victory? 

Where, O death, is your sting?" 

(1 Corinthians 15:55)

Cheetah or Lamb?

 I recently read the latest memoir by a Christian writer whose books I've enjoyed in the past. Except in the four years since her last book, she's left her husband and married a woman. I knew this, which is the reason why I wanted to check out her new book. I wanted to hear what she would say about God.

My Kindle told me I only made it through about 60% of the book, but it was enough to answer my question. God didn't make much of an appearance, and seemed to go by a different name: "Knowing." Besides the usual hilarious parenting stories that this writer is known for, most of the book was about her new-found empowerment. Comparing herself to a [expletive] cheetah, she wrote about freeing herself from the limiting, misogynistic cultural expectations that had made her life small and disappointing. She's stopped putting everyone else before herself. She's stopped deferring. She's started doing whatever it takes to live the "truest, most beautiful" version of herself, not letting anyone else decide what that looks like for her. That includes the "religion" that she followed for years. 

I think about her message, so common in our world right now, in light of the cross, which is the focus of this weekend. I hear Jesus saying that whoever wants to be greatest must first be a servant to everyone. And telling me that if I want to live my best life, I should pick up my cross and follow Him. Because if I fight to live my life on my own terms, I'll lose it, but if I surrender it to Him, my life will be saved. 

I picture Jesus washing feet. And saying, "Not my will but Yours be done." I see Him choosing to live not as a cheetah or even the Lion of Judah that He had every right to be, but as a sacrificial lamb, "despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Is. 53:3). I envision Him being beaten, tortured, and humiliated, the suffering servant and the truest, most beautiful version of Himself. 

We all want to be free. We want to feel fully alive and empowered to be exactly who we're supposed to be. It goes against everything our culture tells us and even against our own intuition to believe that the way to do that is through humble self-surrender. To someone we've never met and can't see. Who asks us to die to ourselves, lean not on our own understanding, and love our neighbors every bit as much as we love ourselves. Not just in theory, but in practice, day in and day out. 

It's funny to me that this author and so many like her think that the way of Christ is the way of boring, restrictive conformity. That's not true at all. It's actually the most wild, radical, subversive lifestyle possible. 

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor. 1:18)