He was all of thirteen years old, just beginning to emerge from boyhood and to fill out a little. He seemed, to look at him, alert, intelligent, full of the mischief you would expect from somebody entering the awkward years. His voice wavered between high-pitched laughter and the creaking croaking of adolescence. He was the picture of youth, with everything ahead of him, with no memory of tragedy, with no disappointments any more serious than being made second string on the baseball team.
Then why would he sport a T-shirt adorned with palm trees and proclaiming in raw red letters, "Life’s a beach, and then you die"? On a thirteen-year-old chest, "Life’s a beach, and then you die"? Why not something like, "My parents visited Acapulco, and all I got was this lousy shirt"? Why not a shirt with an arrow on it pointing to the left and proclaiming, "I’m hers", in the hope that there would some day be somebody to wear its companion, "I’m his"? Why not something else, anything else -- but "Life’s a beach, and then you die?" Not on the backs of young people. In fact, not on the backs or on the minds of anyone.
Frankly, thinking that all I am about is partying for three score and ten or so years and then shuffling off this mortal coil -- that frightens me. That troubles me. To reduce the meaning of our lives to nothing more than providing ourselves with entertainment until our numbers are up -- that’s just not enough. There has to be more. A pop singer of a generation ago sang it well, "Is that all there is?"
I grant you that there is nothing more sobering on a lovely spring day than to make ourselves think about the meaning of our deaths. When the cherry blossoms are at their peak and the breeze caresses us, it is a time for love and for laughter, and not for thinking of death. When crabapple colors delight the eye and star magnolias burst into glory, something down deep begins to stir and to invite us to live, just to live. And that’s great. That’s wonderful ... until that T-shirt and its out-of-place sentiment attack us again. "Life’s a beach ... and then you die." Whatever does that mean?
It means that death always comes as a jarring reality, grinding against the fantasies we d like to live. It is like driving your car with the parking brake applied; you can keep going, but something is dragging you back. Something is keeping you from getting on with your life.
That thing that is keeping us from getting on with our lives, is the awareness that someday we must die. The brake applied to the headlong forward rush of our lives is that terrible tag phrase, "... and then you die." It works against what the poet Tennyson says about us, that "we think we are not made to die."
Let’s cut to the bottom line. We just don’ t know what meaning death has, and so in the last analysis we don’ t know what meaning life has either. We don’t see any sense in death because we haven’t made sense of life first.
And so I want to tell you today that in Jesus the Christ, the meaning of life and therefore the meaning of death become clear. I want you to see that in Him, through Him, and because of Him, you can make sense of your life and therefore of your death. Because of Him ... because He is alive, you and I can live with meaning and can therefore die with more meaning.
There are two ways in which Christ works to make sense of both our lives and our deaths. First, He gives us meaning because in His risen life, full of God’s purpose, we also can live with purpose. And second, He gives us meaning simply by being our constant, eternal companion and by loving us, affirming us unconditionally.
I
First, you can make sense of life and therefore of death if you can learn to live out of God’s purposes and plans for your life. You can find meaning in your life if it has direction and purpose, born out of your perception of what God has called you to be. And then you can also find meaning in death, for you can anticipate hearing His acclaim, ’’Well done."
The disciples who remained behind after their master had been cruelly crucified on Friday were, of course, devastated. They were severely damaged -- not only because they had lost a friend and a leader, but, deeper, because they did not see the point of it. They had not really learned from their teacher very much about the meaning of His life, and therefore they could not for the moment grasp the meaning of His death. From time to time He had tried to tell them that as the Christ of God He would have to suffer and would have to die, but they kept on refusing to see it that way. They rejected it every time Jesus had tried to tell them about His destiny. One of them, the big, blustering Peter, had even tried to shut Jesus up about all this death talk. And since they had never understood the purpose of His life, they could not make sense either of His death.
Frankly, I think that’s always the way it is with us. If we have not found the key to living meaningfully, then the key to dying meaningfully escapes us too. In fact, the very thought of it threatens us.
Last weekend, as some of you know, I went to Texas to visit my mother, who is now in a nursing home in Fort Worth. While I was there, visiting her and watching some of the other residents, I got back in touch once again with why that kind of experience is so threatening.
It is threatening to spend a lot of time around nursing homes and hospitals because we see there people who have been reduced by their circumstances to do nothing more than survive. They are no longer able to do much more than eat and sleep and just barely exist. That bothers us, because we don’t see any purpose in that. We don’t see any meaning in life like that. As I walked out after one particularly difficult visit, something in me stirred to cry out, "No, Lord, not this. I’m not ready for this. I’II never be ready for this.”
But you know what? That is another way of saying, "I’m not ready to die.” And maybe it is also saying, "I don’t really know what my life means.”
So hear now what happened at the tomb in the garden one bright morning. On the first day of the week, at early dawn, as they came to the tomb and found the stone rolled away … as they stood in astonishment before its awesome emptiness … suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them, and said, "Remember how He told you, while He was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and must be crucified, and must on the third day rise again.” And the text says, then -- after knowing that He was alive – “then they remembered His words, and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to the rest.”
You see, they had never understood what Jesus’ life was about ... and therefore had not understood what His death was about. But now they are suddenly presented with something new and with something which does make sense of it all. The Christ who had lived for others and who had died for others was now alive again, and all of it came together. All of it made sense. It was all a part of the purposes of God. When you see the glory of the risen Christ, you can also see the glory of God’s purposes. And they make sense.
I am trying to say this morning that because He lives, you can discover that in the purposes of God there is enough to give meaning and substance to your life and to your death. Because Christ lives, if you live out of the purposes of God, if you live out of the call of God, you will discover that your life has meaning and so also, ultimately, will your death have meaning. It’s not all a beach, it’s not all entertainment, it’s not all just getting from one day to the next – meaningful life is life lived in accordance with God’s intentions. And meaningful death is a death that comes, then, as the climax of those labors.
The year 1991 is turning out to be a landmark year for my family. In early March we paid the last mortgage payment on our house. Didn’t you hear me whooping and hollering? The last of 240 consecutive monthly payments! And then on this past Friday I wrote out the car payment. Take that, Lee Iacocca; you no longer own any piece of my chariot!
Now in May my wife and I will reach thirty years of marriage -- what I like to call our first thirty years. Just a whole lot of things are coming together for us right now. But,
you know, there is a temptation in all of that. The temptation is to sit back and find the rocking chairs and let life happen. Just take it easy and relax a bit. "Life’s palm-tree-waving, happy-go-lucky beach."
But that’s exactly what the T-shirt warns me about. "Life’s a beach, and then you die". No, if I know the purpose of the risen Christ, I can’t sit back and ease up. If I know the reason for the risen Christ, I remember that I still have a purpose. I have a purpose, I have a calling, I have to live out of God’s will for my life. Because of Him, I am not about to slow down. Because of His life, we are not going to lose our motivation. And because He is alive, if tomorrow I am no longer alive in the flesh, it is well. It is all right. When you can live out of a sense of purpose; when you can live with God’s call in your heart, then you can make sense of your life and even of your death.
II
But not only can you make sense out of life and death through living in the center of God’s will; I see something else. I see that the risen Christ makes sense of our lives and makes sense of our deaths just by being our companion on the journey. Strange as it sounds, life makes sense and so does death simply because the risen Christ is present, He is our constant companion, and He is with us. That’s all; He is with us. And just being with us, alive as He is -- that makes all the difference.
Have you discovered that companionship is the key to the way you feel about your life? Have you found out that whatever you do is made more meaningful if someone you value affirms it?
A former student of mine from Howard University graduated and moved to New York to look for a job. He used to call me from New York about once every two weeks. And every time he would call the conversation would follow exactly the same pattern. "Thomas, how are you doing?" "Oh, just trying to make it. Just trying to get by" "Well, Thomas, did you call the people I told you about?" "No, Dr. Smith, I’m just trying to make it. Just trying to get by. Just want to do this on my own." "But, Thomas, since you need a job, I think if you’ll talk to my friends up there, they may be able to help you." "No, Dr. Smith, I just need to make it on my own. But by the way, Dr. Smith, I’m getting depressed."
Well, of course. Of course. Life was not meant to be lived in solitary confinement. Life was meant to be lived with companionship. And if I have live companionship, if there is somebody at my side who cares about me, I can find meaning. I can feel affirmed. But without that, there’s not much energy to go on.
Now isn’t it intriguing how the men at the tomb address the women who came there planning to anoint the body of Jesus with spices? They address them with a pointed question, one which rings right down through the ages and addresses us too, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" Expect a living Christ, not a decaying body. Expect a companion, not just a memory. Expect a presence and a power, not just an abstract ideal. Nobody ever found that his life was explained simply by cold abstractions, and nobody ever found that his death was interpreted only by lofty ideals. In the last analysis, in the final balance, the only way you can feel that your life makes sense is to have a companion who loves you and affirms you, come what may. And in the last, last analysis, in the most final of balances, the only way that you can know that your death will make sense is to have as your companion the living Christ, in whose resurrected life all your feelings of temporariness can find an answer. If you want to make sense of life and death, then make the living Christ your daily and constant companion, for He will love you unconditionally. He will supply the meaning you are looking for.
I take you back to that nursing home in Texas where I spent a few days last week. My mother is at least partially confused; she has forgotten a great many of the details of her life. She did know me when I entered, and like mothers from the beginning of time have done, she managed to put me on a guilt trip. Despite all the letters I had written her about my coming, her first words were, "Well, I was wondering what ever happened to you."
But my brother tried something with her, and I was surprised at the result. My brother played an old recording that he had found, made about forty-five years ago. It was a recording of my father singing some of his favorite music. His voice was clearly recognizable to me. Bob played it and said, "Mother, do you recognize the voice?" "No" "It’s Dad singing" "Who?" "My dad, your husband, Everett" "Well, I don’t know". That was very sad. Forty-eight years of marriage and she cannot even remember him right now. Companionship lost, forgotten.
But let me tell you what we did when I left. I took her hands in mine and I invited her to pray with me. We said very little with our voices; but our hearts said it all ... and that quivering face and that quiet tear let me know that my mother has a companion who has never left her ... whom she has not forgotten, but more important, who will not forget her. And her life has meaning, and so will her death when it shall come. Because the living risen Christ is the companion of her eternity. "Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen."
"Life’s a beach, and then you die." If that’s all you want, go home and forget about Christ. But if you want meaning; if you want to know that your life has value; if you want to see that even your death, whether it be in a year or in fifty years, has meaning – then find God’s purpose and live it; find God’s Christ and live and walk with Him. For He is risen, as He said. And He holds the keys of life and death.
"When this poor lisping stammering tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song
I’ll sing Thy power to save …”
