I
think we all know that suddenly discovering that one’s time is short has a very profound effect
on a person. It certainly did with my
father when he began his struggle with cancer.
I remember a few months before my he died he came up with a quote which
I think sums it all up. We were driving around
looking at the countryside and he made the comment, “You never know how
beautiful a tree is until you’ve seen it through a dying man’s eyes.” When you know that your time is short you
truly do begin to see life from a whole new perspective.
This
way of looking at life, a dying man’s perspective I’ll call it, is in my
estimation a healthy way to approach life. You see, we’re all terminal and its a basic fact
of life that we will not be settled in this life until we come to grips with the
fact that sooner or later we’re going to die.
Acceptance of that fact forces a person to come to grips with what is
really important in life. It makes you value
your time and prioritize what you do with it. There’s a sense of urgency to get the important things done. It stings you with the joy of gratitude for
each day you still have but also with the pain of regret as you reflect on the
things you have done and the things you have left undone and the things you’ve
said and left unsaid. Can things be mended with the people you have treated
badly or been hurt by.
Eventually we must
all come to the point in our lives when we begin to see the world through dying
man’s eyes. This new perspective can
come upon us at any age preferably sooner than later and preferably without
having been told we have a terminal illness or anything like that. If we are to be given the grace of
contentment in this life sooner or later we will come through an anxious part
of our lives to a point where we accept the life that we’ve been given and how we’ve
lived it. We find the strength to
forgive ourselves and others, and we just get ready to face the rest of our
days with a profound sense of gratitude.
That’s seeing the world through a dying man’s eyes. It comes upon us when we are not expecting
it. It is, I believe, a gift from God for we cannot come to this point on our own.
That in mind, let’s
turn to our passage in 1 Corinthians.
Here the Apostle Paul writes about how we should live our lives knowing
that the time is short. God has put a time limit on his creation as it is in
its present state of by oppressed by the futility of sin and death. The end of this broken world is drawing near
and the Trinity is going to make all things new. Knowing this should cause us to begin to value our time and our use of it differently but not so much in the same way that we would seeing the world through a dying man’s eyes. That’s
stopping a bit short of the full meaning of where Paul is taking us with talk
of time being short for present form of this world is passing away. Things are different now that God the Father
by the power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus the Son from the dead. The power
of re-Creation, of New Creation, Creation being healed from Sin and freed from
Death and Evil, the power – the love of God in Jesus Christ – is changing this
world starting with us, the ones who are being made new in union with Jesus in
his now resurrected humanity by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We, in Christ, see the world through the
resurrected man’s eyes. We see it in its
created beauty. But we also see it in
its state of futility. Yet, we also see
it knowing that the day is coming when it will be set free from this futility
just as we know we ourselves are for the power of that New Day is dawning on us
now as a foretaste of what’s to come and, indeed, the evidence of it.
Reflecting
on Paul’s life, the New Day dawned on him when he met Jesus, our resurrected
and ascended Lord, while on the road to Damascus on his way to round up Christians
to bring them back to Jerusalem to be tried by the Temple authorities for
blasphemy. Jesus met him in a bright
light and called him by name confronted Paul as to why he was persecuting him. Jesus
said, “Saul. Saul. Why are you persecuting me?” Paul answered, “Who are you, Lord?” “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Who…are…you…Lord? Paul’s confession
there – his calling Jesus Lord – was the same as calling Jesus the LORD God of
Israel. Paul’s being able to do that was
evidence that he, Paul standing there blinded by the light, had been thusly
made alive, called, a chosen instrument of Jesus who would suffer much for him.
No one can call Jesus Lord except by the
power of the Holy Spirit. In that bright
light, in that personal confrontation with Jesus Paul stepped into the New
Creation and knew Jesus to be the LORD of it.
After
Paul met
Jesus raised from death on the road to Damascus he began
to see the world and the worth of his time differently. Yet not from the perspective of a man who was
going to die soon, but rather through the eyes of a man who had died and been
born from above in Christ Jesus by
the power of Holy Spirit. Therefore, living life now was living his life
in Christ, for Christ, through Christ, by Christ because Jesus Christ was
living in him. The life of Christ lived
in faithfulness according to the way of the cross was his new orientation. His new striving. Paul says as much in Galatians writing, “I
have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faithfulness of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).
For Paul, life can only now be found and lived
in striving for Christ and coming to
know the transforming power of Jesus’ resurrection. He
writes in Philippians, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake
of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his
sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as manure, in order
that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my
own that comes from the law, but that which comes through the faithfulness of
Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith with the result that
I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the
resurrection from the dead.” Jesus Christ is the beginning
and the end of the new humanity that is in him. It is in his resurrected life that we now
find our new life. The old life and
everything in it needs to be left behind. The
Trinity did not create a new religion called Christianity by what he did in,
through, and as Jesus Christ. He created
a new humanity, new human being that will effect all creation for life as Adam,
the old humanity, did for death.
The way Paul and many
of the very first Christians came to understand life was that we are dead to
the old life and all its social institutions for it is nothing more than the
fallen, broken, futile life of Adam that culminates in death. Now, because we are made alive through Jesus’
resurrection from the dead and his Spirit lives in each of us uniting us to his
new human being we must become missionary vessels of the new life, the kingdom
of God that lives in each of us. They
began to prioritize their time and their actions around spreading the Word of what God had done and is going to do for all creation by raising
Jesus from the dead. They announced this
new reality and lived accordingly by creating communities where all people – slave,
free, Jew, Gentile, white, black, yellow, brown, male, female – were welcome,
loved as family, and treated with honour.
Everyone was a
missionary, an ambassador for Christ, and that task took precedence over all
others. The old life was gone. As Paul wrote in our passage today, if you
are married live as though you are not married.
If you are a widow do not complicate your mission by seeking another
spouse. If you are not yet married, stay
unmarried. He goes on with his
extreme sounding views. If you are saddened by the loss of the people you love,
put it behind you. You can not let that
keep you from Christ’s work. If you’ve
found happiness in this life, put it behind you and get on to the suffering
struggles of a missionary for Christ. If
you have wealth, leave it behind. If you
conduct a business, leave it behind. In Christ’s
kingdom the only priority that a follower of Christ can have is announcing the
coming of this Creation’s one true Lord of creation.
That’s a pretty radical way of approaching
life. But it is Christ’s call to each of
us whom he has called to be his followers.
We must put our lives behind us and take up our crosses and follow him in his new resurrected life. But how do we do this for
we just can’t pick up and leave everything behind, can we?
Well, Paul gives a
bit of an answer to that question a few verses earlier. He writes: “Let each of you lead the life
that that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you” (v. 17). And a little further down the page: “Let each
of you remain in the condition in which you were called” (v. 20). If every Christian literally left home and
job and everything behind to become traveling missionaries for Christ, there
would have been some serious social upheaval.
It would be even worse today if all the people of the world who call
themselves Christians literally left everything behind to do mission trips all
the time. The gist of Paul’s advice to them and it is
advice that we must also take to heart is that we are all missionaries or ambassadors for Christ right where we are at – at home, at work, among our
neighbours. That is God’s way of
reaching out to everyone.
Each of you is a
missionary for Christ. If you are a
parent, live the life of Christ before your children and teach them the
faith. If you are a student, live the
life of Christ before your friends. Live
the life of Christ before your neighbors.
If you own a business, let Jesus use that business to be a vehicle of
Kingdom of God justice and equity rather than simply some way to make you rich. Live the life of Christ before your employees
and co-workers. Don’t be gaudy or offensive about it or act
like you’ve been brainwashed by Jesus.
Most people just find that offensive.
But, most people don’t mind if you let them know you’re praying for them
when they have troubles. Most people
don’t mind an occasional invitation to church.
Most people don’t mind that if while you’re talking to them that you mention you happened to
enjoy church last Sunday. Most people
don’t mind if you ask their opinions on matters of faith that you don’t quite
understand yourself. Having faith in
Jesus Christ is nothing to be ashamed of.
Be his missionaries
wherever you are at. Amen.
