When London commuters descended into the Underground yesterday at about eight in the morning, nothing could have been less remarkable. Many, no doubt, were doing the same thing they'd done numerous mornings before: Heading into the city and their jobs.
As they pushed their ways onto the trains, taking seats or standing for the jostling rides to their various stops, they repeated well-worn rituals played out on buses and trains in cities all around the world every business morning. Some read newspapers. Others listened to their i-Pods, spoke with fellow passengers, worked on their laptops, desperately scanned the memos they meant to read the night before for their morning meetings, or simply thought about the evening behind or the night ahead.
But these rites were violently interrupted: loud reports, flying glass, mangled metal, smoke everywhere. Thirty-seven people suddenly lost their lives. Hundreds more were maimed, perhaps in ways that will mar their lives from now on.
Among the many lessons yesterday's terrorist attacks give to all of us is this: Life on this planet is fragile and in spite of all our delusions about having control over what happens to us, it can all be ended in a flash.
And it isn't just terrorist attacks that tell us this is so. "It's cancer and it's terminal," the doctor may tell us. "The heart is so badly damaged, there is little we can do." "Mrs. Jones, I'm sorry to tell you that your daughter was killed in a car crash this morning." Little of it makes the headlines, but people receive news like this every single day. It confirms a simple truth: With few widely-accepted exceptions, the ratio of deaths to births remains 1 to 1.
Some see this and become paralyzed, afraid to live. They roll up and die long before their hearts stop beating.
Others adopt an "eat, drink, and be merry" attitude, trying to drown out the reality of their own mortality with frenzied activity or the acquisition of money and stuff.
Others become obsessed with making their marks, whether on their families or the larger world.
Still others think to play God themselves, by deciding to end their own lives.
None of these attitudes will do. Some of them take this life too seriously. Others take it too flippantly.
We need to find a way that allows us to live this life to the fullest while understanding that there is something more. Jesus tells a story of a man who tore down his old barns in order to erect bigger ones in which to store all he owned and live a life of ease. As Jesus tells it:
"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So it is withose who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." (Luke 12:20-21)
That wasn't a play for our money. Jesus "played"--lived, died, and rose--for much higher stakes than money. His whole object was to give us new lives, ones that start now and go on in eternity. (John 3:16; Second Corinthians 5:17; Romans 1:16-17; Romans 3:21-26) Jesus is inviting us to give ourselves to Him, the God-in-the-flesh Who gave Himself to us.
Jesus empowers all with faith in Him to live this life to its fullest, savoring each moment while accepting its inevitable end.
Jesus empowers all with faith in Him to face the future beyond our graves without dread or a sense of futility. We live in the certainty that nothing "will be able to separate us from the love of God."
Life is fragile. But God is strong.
Speaking for myself, I can say that when I latch onto the God made known through Jesus, I have a strength that isn't my own, one that enables me to relish my life and rejoice in my future. I wish the same thing for you!
UPDATE: Rob Asghar has linked to this piece. Thanks, Rob!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Steve Norris has also linked to this post. Thank you!
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