Jay’s Blog – Living Life in the Light of Death

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I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately.  But before you think, “Oh, man, this is too depressing for me;” hang with me for a minute. Because I think that only in the light of death can we really understand what it means to live. 

I’ve watched a number of my friends (including me) make the long walk to goodbye with their parents, and I’m watching my 60th birthday rapidly approaching in my windshield. These things are making me reflective of what is behind me and what lies ahead. 

When I was young, I didn’t like the Book of Ecclesiastes. Like the beginning of this blog, it seemed depressing, fatalistic, the ruminations of a king who had made some really bad life choices. Kind of a cautionary tale. I was never going to think this way. I had my whole life ahead of me, and this book seemed hopeless. Isn’t that what he meant by “everything is vanity?” It’s all worthless, hopeless? 

Now I get it. The Preacher (probably Solomon) in Ecclesiastes saw life as it is. His wisdom had not abandoned him. Life is, as Henri Nouwen says, a short, often painful mission, a valley of tears, but full of occasions to do God’s fruitful work and enjoy life for its simple gifts. And death is the “open door that leads me into the celebration, where the King himself will serve us.” 

In Ecclesiasties 9:1-12, the Preacher makes clear that one of the things that lies ahead, and is absolutely certain, is death. We live in a broken, fallen world, and this is our lot. It is evil, the Preacher tells us, in the sense that it’s not the way it was intended; death was not woven into the original fiber of creation. It is an aberration, and if it feels wrong, it’s because it is. 

But there’s another part of death, death viewed and embraced through the lens of eternal life, that gives us the frame of mind we need to truly live, a mindset we often miss because we’re too busy avoiding death. Death is certain; life is uncertain: “Time and chance (circumstances) happen to us all.” 

The older I get, the more I realize that, as beautiful as this world may at times be, I want to be home with Christ. More and more, the words of Paul in Philippians 1:21, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain,” resonate with me. I think it was hard for me to envision that, to embrace it when I was younger, because this life, with all its attractions, hopes, potentialities, and opportunities to achieve, seemed more attractive to me then. As songwriter Rich Mullins, now with Christ, said, “The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance I owe only to the giver of all good things.” Especially the yearning, the desire to be near forever. 

But, at some point I got to where I’ve accomplished all those things, or those things I realized I’m ever really going to achieve, and by God’s grace it turned out to be more than I could have ever hoped or imagined. Then, I realized that while they absolutely resulted in God’s Kingdom being furthered and people flourishing (amen and amen!), those achievements never gave me the satisfaction that I never would have confessed I was seeking, but now realized that the darkest parts of me were. And, in that very real sense, it was all vanity, striving after wind. 

In light of all this, to do more of it at this point in my life, expecting a different result, would truly be insane. 

The only chance we have at ultimate beauty and transcendence is the only one God ever promised to begin with. As Moses lay dying on Mt. Nebo, watching Joshua and the Israelites prepare to enter the Promised Land, I can’t help but wonder whether Moses realized in that moment that it was the people of Israel who were living out the metaphor, while Moses alone was getting the real thing: to find Home, the true Promised Land, together with His friend and God, in full presence. What seemed like a consequence for disobedience was actually God’s kindest mercy in disguise, as death always is for Moses’ children in Jesus. 

In Living Life Backward, in his reflections on Ecclesiastes, Pastor David Gibson encourages that gift, not gain, is the lens through which to look at life. “Go, eat your food with joy.” The Preacher encourages. Life is not about trying to create your own meaning or trying to find it by what you achieve. Meaning lies in realizing life is a gift, your marriage is a gift, your children are a gift, friends are a gift, work is a gift, God is a gift, and enjoying all these things, your food and drink, is a gift from the Lord. 

Every wise old person I’ve ever met has told me some version of “I wish I had spent more time with family and friends, enjoying relationships, caring for people and pouring into them, and less time at work.” They don’t say that because they’re senile and just forgot how important work is. They all say it because it’s true. Life is meant to be enjoyed and lived as a gift. 

God has given me the gift of vision. He’s given me the ability to see an imagined, better future and work towards it. He gave me that gift not for me, but for you. That’s served our school well over the years, but the shadow side of it is the near-constant struggle I have with living in the here and now, enjoying the moment, and not planning for and living in tomorrow. I’m trying really hard at this point in life to acknowledge my inevitable death, to surrender my future to the Lord, and to live with those I love, enjoying the gifts of the present. 

For some reason I don’t really understand (because I know me) it matters to these teachers and kids when I walk around and say hello to them and ask them how they’re doing and talk to them about their lives. It matters almost as much, and maybe more, to the now and the future of our school as the next big thing we have planned on the horizon. It’s taken me far too long to realize that up here and in my life with my family. 

I want to spend more time calling and talking to my mom while she’s still with us; get back to Africa and smell acacia wood burning and hike the Camino Santiago in Spain; play more golf and work on my short game; to go and see my kids wherever they are as much as possible; speak life and truth into the lives of young leaders (again, somehow that matters); leave Grace healthy and strong and see you flourish, but also enjoy you as my friends and not just my ministry; plant some Christian schools; care for my friends who are caring for their dying; write another book, this time one that will move people’s hearts toward Jesus and not just their minds; feed more hungry people with my own hands; use my money to take my family places, love my friends well, and introduce kids to Jesus; and live like all of that doesn’t depend on me. That’s a real bucket list. 

At the end, our death bears fruit that far exceeds the span of our lives.

Jesus said, “In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest.” (John 12:24).  We all want to leave a legacy. But whether our name lasts forever, or whether, like the leader of the Moravian movement, Count Zinzendorf said, “preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten (for which he was ironically remembered), it doesn’t really matter. Life lived in view of death is about loving God, living life as a gift, and learning to rest in that. 

A final, helpful exercise by Arthur Brooks is a good way to end: on the first Sunday of the month, imagine yourself with one year left to live. With that in mind, how would I structure this coming month? What would I say “yes” to, and to what would I say “no”? How do my choices today resonate in eternity? 

Jay Ferguson, Ph.D., Head of School at Grace Community School, writes regularly on his blog, JaysBlog.org.