Death lottery
This week is on Luke 13:1-5:
People die. It's part of life. Nobody wants to die, because they can't see the next phase of our eternal existence. So, in order to not have to face death, people attach all sorts of significance to when people die, how they die, what must have happened if they died, what sort of person they must have been, and so on. People make up fairy tales, like "It's not God's will that anyone dies," or "Only the good die young." If someone dies, sometimes people imagine that God wanted to get rid of them in order to punish them. Jesus attacks that bizarre perspective here.
Death is just the next stage of our existence. People in the early church referred to it as a kind of sleep. It's temporary. God knows when it's going to happen, and it's OK. It's not punishment. Dying in a car wreck, or of lingering pancreatic cancer, doesn't mean you're less beloved than someone who lives into their second century or dies a martyr's death. Not being raised from the dead miraculously doesn't mean that God doesn't love you, or doesn't love your grieving relatives and friends. That's religious hogwash designed to guilt people into religion. Everyone dies. How it happens is less important that what happens next.
The people Jesus mentions all died horrible deaths. They weren't punishments. They weren't testimonies to how horrible the people were, or how much God hated their relatives, or their lifestyles, or the communities they lived in. Just like God knows when the bus drops you off to get born, he knows when the bus shows up to take you away. Obsessing about it will do you no good. If you want to worry, worry about being right with God.
Jesus says not to worry about the manner of your death, but to worry about your salvation. What good does it do you to spend a comparatively tiny span of ninety years on earth, dying peacefully of natural causes, only to spend the next zillion years of eternity in torment because you don't know God? It's much better to live twenty-two years in poverty, burn to death in a horrible house fire, after years of a degenerative neural disorder, leaving a huge grieving family unable to provide for themselves, and end up together with God's people for eternity. But all we see is this world we live in now, and so we make up all kinds of ideas and theories to try to make sense of the timing and method of departure. We concentrate on that, and miss the whole point of being here in the first place.
If someone dies of congestive heart failure, or gets run over by a truck, or dies in a plane crash, or gets AIDS and wastes away, does that disqualify them from sainthood? Can you seriously argue that that person wasn't loved by God? If that was the criteria, there wouldn't be any death. Everyone would get raised from the dead when people prayed for them. It doesn't happen like that though. Does that mean we fail in some other area?
When God raises someone from the dead, he's making a point about something else. It isn't about the person being raised from the dead, or the person praying for the raising. It's a demo that takes place at a time or place of God's choosing. It isn't because the person who died was any more beloved by their friends and family, or any more useful as a Christian here on earth. It isn't because the person praying has fasted longer, prayed harder, studied more theology, or preached a more solid sermon than the next guy. It's all about God and the point he's trying to make at that moment.
If someone you love dies, and they don't come back when you call for them, don't take it personally. Be happy for them for where they are right now. Would you force someone who retired to come back to work, just because you missed them? Would you force someone to give up their diploma and go back to school because they graduated before you did? If someone is born prematurely, does that mean their mother hates them and doesn't want to do their breathing and eating for them any more? We're so inconsistent in how we view this stuff.
Meanwhile, worry about the time you have left. Make use of your time and of the gifts God gave you. Get to know God and help those you love to find him too. That's the important stuff. That's the stuff that lasts longer than our time here. And if after all of that, you die a stupid senseless death like billions have, at least your time here meant something.
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
People die. It's part of life. Nobody wants to die, because they can't see the next phase of our eternal existence. So, in order to not have to face death, people attach all sorts of significance to when people die, how they die, what must have happened if they died, what sort of person they must have been, and so on. People make up fairy tales, like "It's not God's will that anyone dies," or "Only the good die young." If someone dies, sometimes people imagine that God wanted to get rid of them in order to punish them. Jesus attacks that bizarre perspective here.
Death is just the next stage of our existence. People in the early church referred to it as a kind of sleep. It's temporary. God knows when it's going to happen, and it's OK. It's not punishment. Dying in a car wreck, or of lingering pancreatic cancer, doesn't mean you're less beloved than someone who lives into their second century or dies a martyr's death. Not being raised from the dead miraculously doesn't mean that God doesn't love you, or doesn't love your grieving relatives and friends. That's religious hogwash designed to guilt people into religion. Everyone dies. How it happens is less important that what happens next.
The people Jesus mentions all died horrible deaths. They weren't punishments. They weren't testimonies to how horrible the people were, or how much God hated their relatives, or their lifestyles, or the communities they lived in. Just like God knows when the bus drops you off to get born, he knows when the bus shows up to take you away. Obsessing about it will do you no good. If you want to worry, worry about being right with God.
Jesus says not to worry about the manner of your death, but to worry about your salvation. What good does it do you to spend a comparatively tiny span of ninety years on earth, dying peacefully of natural causes, only to spend the next zillion years of eternity in torment because you don't know God? It's much better to live twenty-two years in poverty, burn to death in a horrible house fire, after years of a degenerative neural disorder, leaving a huge grieving family unable to provide for themselves, and end up together with God's people for eternity. But all we see is this world we live in now, and so we make up all kinds of ideas and theories to try to make sense of the timing and method of departure. We concentrate on that, and miss the whole point of being here in the first place.
If someone dies of congestive heart failure, or gets run over by a truck, or dies in a plane crash, or gets AIDS and wastes away, does that disqualify them from sainthood? Can you seriously argue that that person wasn't loved by God? If that was the criteria, there wouldn't be any death. Everyone would get raised from the dead when people prayed for them. It doesn't happen like that though. Does that mean we fail in some other area?
When God raises someone from the dead, he's making a point about something else. It isn't about the person being raised from the dead, or the person praying for the raising. It's a demo that takes place at a time or place of God's choosing. It isn't because the person who died was any more beloved by their friends and family, or any more useful as a Christian here on earth. It isn't because the person praying has fasted longer, prayed harder, studied more theology, or preached a more solid sermon than the next guy. It's all about God and the point he's trying to make at that moment.
If someone you love dies, and they don't come back when you call for them, don't take it personally. Be happy for them for where they are right now. Would you force someone who retired to come back to work, just because you missed them? Would you force someone to give up their diploma and go back to school because they graduated before you did? If someone is born prematurely, does that mean their mother hates them and doesn't want to do their breathing and eating for them any more? We're so inconsistent in how we view this stuff.
Meanwhile, worry about the time you have left. Make use of your time and of the gifts God gave you. Get to know God and help those you love to find him too. That's the important stuff. That's the stuff that lasts longer than our time here. And if after all of that, you die a stupid senseless death like billions have, at least your time here meant something.
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