Life or Death?
Life or Death?
Life or Death?
Life or Death?
All life requires death. “This is my body….that you may have life”
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I know that my redeemer lives - it's not what you think it is.
I trust you to kill me…
Today, I meditated on a passage of writing by Madeleine L’Engle. The passage talked about suffering and concluded with an affirmation of “I know my redeemer lives”.
I closed my eyes and let the phrase “I know my redeemer lives” resonate in me…..
I envisioned that I was led down a staircase and was told I would meet my living redeemer when I got to the bottom.
At the bottom of the staircase, I looked up and saw the grim reaper. I was surprised and he said, “you knew it would be me.” And I did. I thought about the leaves that fall to the ground and rot, become soil and new life. I thought of the dead animal in the field that decays and becomes soil and new life. I thought of all the deaths of hopes and dreams and agendas in my life and how even though they were the end of something, they were the birth of something else. How death is redemptive. How new life only comes when something old dies.
Unless a seed falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed.
I took the grim reaper’s hand. It was warm and friendly. Not scary at all. This was my redeemer after all. I asked him, “where are you going to take me?” and he said he wasn’t going to take me anywhere, I was already where I needed to be.
We just stood there and I thought about how death and suffering are the redeemer. I thought about how alive death and suffering are all the time. How my redeemer lives.
I thought about how that is the story of the crucifixion.
As the meditation drew to a close, he moved away from me and became large. He raised his hands and in a loud voice said, “Behold I make all things new.”
And he was gone.
We are told in the Bible that the final enemy to be destroyed is death. I always thought that this meant that death would be destroyed – as in – death would no longer exist and we would live forever. But maybe I missed something with this way of seeing it.
After all, we are told that our spiritual lives are supposed to consist of death. We are to be dying daily, losing our life in order to find it, picking up a cross daily, giving up everything. How can we live in death mode if the goal is to get rid of death altogether?
Maybe the passage about destroying the final enemy (death) is talking about the destruction of the enmity – not the destruction of death itself. We are told that Christ destroyed enmity and reconciled all things. If this is true, then death is no longer an enemy, but a friend. Maybe we can see it as a redeemer, just as we see it in the crucifixion. The sting is taken out. Death and suffering whether figurative or even literal, are now simply means to new life, resurrections and the making and growing of new things.
I know that my redeemer lives.
From "checkmate" by Rumi
The soul is a newly skinned hide, bloody and gross.
Work on it with manual discipline,
and the bitter tanning acid of grief,
and you’ll become lovely, and very strong.
If you can’t do this work yourself, don’t worry.
You don’t even have to make a decision,
one way or another. The Friend, who knows
a lot more than you do, will bring difficulties,
and grief, and sickness,
as medicine, as happiness,
as the essence of the moment when you’re beaten,
when you hear Checkmate, and can finally say
'I trust you to kill me.'
I know that my redeemer lives
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All philosophical
My heart rises in my throat and I think I might just choke on the sadness of it.
These past months I’ve waxed philosophical about death and how it’s bound up in life.
I’ve thought about evil and how it’s bound up in good.
I’ve stood with my arms firmly planted on my hips in the face of suffering and declared that it’s often just a story I am telling myself and I could tell a different one.
I’ve tried to be all zen about the mess of life, and the tragedy of watching my parents pass away in front of my eyes, little by little, bit by bit.
Most of the time, I’ve been dry-eyed.
All cerebral and philosophical.
And then I read a story about a mother dolphin in New Zealand who is grieving over her stillborn baby and is carrying the body of a her dead calf on her back through the waters for days and days unable to let it go.
And my heart rises in my throat and I think I might just choke on the sadness of it. That mother dolphin. Who can’t get all philosophical about her suffering. All she can do is experience it. And she carries it for days and days.
I’m haunted by her and I can’t breathe. So I push her away because I’m not as courageous as she is. I can’t hold on to it like she can. I have to let it slip into the depths so that I don’t.
https://people.com/pets/mourning-mother-dolphin-carries-dead-baby-for-days/
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My God my God, why have you forsaken me?
In death, God is riven from God’s very self.
“From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,lemasabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).
When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.”
Elijah didn’t come to save him. God didn’t come to save him.
It was finished.
In death.
This is one of the profound elements of the Christian story and one that is overlooked.
Many people have rejected the idea of a God of life and love due to the tremendous suffering we see all around us. If there is a loving God, why doesn’t God do something about suffering? It’s a question we have all heard, or asked, or wondered about. Maybe we have decided it’s an unanswerable question. Maybe we have set it aside. Maybe we have found answers that satisfy us. Answers like: evil and suffering isn’t from God, but from satan, or from mankind. Answers like: suffering is due to the falleness of creation. Answers like: suffering is what transforms us into the likeness of Christ, therefore it is part of God’s plan. Answers like: it’s my fault, I didn’t have enough faith.
But if we are honest, when we are in our darkest hour of pain and suffering, we cry out, “my God, my God WHY have you forsaken me?!” WHERE IS GOD IN THIS?!?!? Is God insensitive to my pain? Does God hear me? Does God exist?
Perhaps the answer is not “no, God has not forsaken you.” But rather, “yes – God has forsaken you.”
When God forsakes you, God forsakes God’s very self.
That is one of the profound truths being revealed in the crucifixion. In death and in suffering – God forsakes God’s very self.
If God is life and love then every incident of death and evil is God forsaking himself. Every incident of pain and suffering is life and love forsaking itself, forsaking you, forsaking all that is life and love.
But God is not JUST life and light and love because life cannot exist without death. Death must occur for life to occur and that is the second profound truth in the crucifixion. Without death there is no life. So in the very nature of life itself, death is built in. So God is life. God is death. And in death, God is riven from God’s very self.
At the core of God is a forsaking, a giving over to death in order that there may be life.
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.” John 12:23-25
“What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” I Cor 15:36
“If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save his life must lose it” Matt 16:24-25
I used to read these types of verses thinking they were about living a life of self-denial and sacrifice. Now I see them as verses that tell us that life and death are bound up together. Without death, there is no life. We see this clearly in nature and accept it readily. It’s harder when it’s our life and the things or people we love dearly.
Wherever there is good – evil is right there.
Wherever there is life – death is.
The plant dies to produce the seed. Plants die as they are eaten as food. Animals die as they are eaten as food. Crazy weird beetle larva paralyze their prey and eat them alive. A parasite called a strepsiptera eats its mother from the inside out to be born.
In death, life springs forth.
A couple of years ago I was on a silent retreat. One of the exercises was to write down all the things in my life that had been pivotal, transformational, life changing. What had made me who I was today? It was interesting to see that most of them were painful things. Suffering. And yet, most of the suffering had produced life in me, growth, goodness.
In death, life springs forth.
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