Living or Dying?

Is it the optimist's point of view to say, "I am living" and the pessimist's to say, "I am dying"? Is it really a "glass half-full or half-empty" thing or there is there more to it than that? If you are reading this, it's safe to say you are living. But it's also safe to say you are dying. We are alive, but as we are aging, our bodies are deteriorating. This may be more evident to some of us than it is to others! The reality is that with each passing year, month, week, day and hour, we move closer to the day when our temporal existence will cease. Everyone knows this. It's even the subject of a number of songs heard on the radio as of late, such as "Live Like You Were Dying" and "If Today Was Your Last Day". It's just that we don't like to think about it. Look at all of the products whose producers claim remove wrinkles. Then you have all of the plastic surgeons out there performing face lifts, tummy tucks and the like. In addition, there are many anti-aging supplements, diets and exercise regimens, all trumpeting the notion that you don't have to get (or at least look) old. Some say the age of fifty today is equivalent to the age of forty yesterday. When this started or how it is determined, who knows?

I think it's safe to say, most of us probably feel aging and dying are terribly unjust. It's just not right to lose that smooth, supple skin. Or for that thick head of hair to become grey- or bald. It's also not right for those knees we never had problems with to start creaking and aching. (Boy, that ol' Arthur Itis is a royal pain, isn't he?) Then we have those sore muscles that used to feel fine in no time at all, taking days or weeks to recover. Don't even get me started about the back problems!

The deal is, we weren't meant to go through this at the beginning. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." I hope I'm not taking this verse out of context, but seems that the eternal aspect of man's soul is sort of wired in from creation. Though the sin of Adam and Eve short-circuited the very first covenant God made with man, the internal sense that life is for living and that death is not part of the equation, never left. There is a great frustration about death because it disrupts all that we know to be good. It leaves a gaping hole in the lives of those left to endure a loved one's passing. It does the same thing in popular culture. Did you think at some point that it just doesn't seem right for Michael Jackson to die? I imagine folks thought the same thing about John Lennon. What about Princess Diana? And the list goes on and on.

What about Jesus? He spoke about why He came and the things He must endure, even death on the cross, yet it still didn't seem right that He should die. Even those in His inner circle didn't get it, and neither would we. But He did die. He was dead as dead can be. But death didn't have the final say because three days later, Jesus rose again just like He said He would. He took care of the terrible injustice of death!

In an age of age-defiance, we have been given a message and a command to let it be known that there is a fountain of youth. (This illustration was given by my pastor on Sunday.) That fountain is flowing with Living Water. That Living Water is Messiah Yeshua, Jesus Christ. This message is not anti-aging, but even better; it's anti-death. From this perspective it shouldn't be all that difficult to let people know about God's love for them, and therefore His plan for salvation. People are doing everything and anything, in futility of course, to defy aging and death. They will never find the solution until they find Jesus. Let's do our part to make Him known in word, in deed and in intercessory prayer.

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16 KJV)