Dying Well

We joke that we don’t want to pray for maturity, or God might give us suffering. There’s more than a little truth to this. The New Testament book Hebrews is a whole letter written to a group of believers who were being called to expose their faith at a time when this was like sticking your head out of a trench in World-War 1. Except, it was not for the purpose of spiritual growth, but to keep from abandoning faith entirely. No one was pushing them out of the trench; in fact, they could stay there, blend in with other Jews and enjoy the official Roman toleration of Judaism, and their possessions, their families, and their lives would not be at risk.

The writer coaxes them out in a dozen different ways: God disciplines through suffering those he loves (Heb 12:6); this is the time, the day when God is acting (Heb 3:13); faith which leads to suffering is a constant pattern among the heroes of the Old Testament (Heb 11); those heroes are watching, even now, and waiting at the heavenly city to which they have been called (Heb 12:22-23).

Near the end of this winsome letter he says, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (13:7). “Outcome” is ekbasin, which also means “the end of one’s life” (BDAG). In the words of Raymond Brown, rather than simply considering the way their leaders lived their lives,

...it is probably far more natural here to see in this statement a reference to the death of these leaders, possibly even by martyrdom. Even if they did not pay that supreme price, the very way in which they had passed from this life serenely and unafraid was a radiant example in a world terrified by death and an unknown future. Christians of this kind have an abiding influence; the readers are encouraged to imitate their faith.  

In the Victorian era it was common for Christians to contemplate those who had died well. They even collected into books the last words of believers. As health care has improved, though, dying well has become a lost art. In the culture at large, life is about self-actualization while collecting accomplishments and holdings, and death is the ultimate interruption to these pursuits. Talking about death is considered defeatist and depressing. Given our unprecedented control over the end of our lives, this generation does not simply succumb to death, it must often be willing to deliberately let go. When believers hang on, white-knuckled until the bitter end, we send a clear message that they have no peace with what comes next.

Thinking about this has given me a horrifying awareness of how limited our time is. Even if I don’t contract cancer or die in a car crash, my blood is circulated by the uninterrupted action of a muscle I don’t control, which is doomed to wear out. We struggle (and reasonably so) when someone dies an untimely death, but all death is untimely.

Belief in God’s existence is not enough (James 2:9). Do we also believe God loves us, and won’t fail us when we are so vulnerable we can’t even hang on to our lives? All of faith comes down to this: when you look back at your prayers and God’s answers, do you see someone who loves you, and is powerful to save?

If we want to die well, and if we want to be of any help to those around us who are dying, we must cultivate the discipline of recounting God’s faithfulness to us.

At the same time we should ask, was God was faithful to Jesus? If you can read the Gospels and see, standing behind Jesus in all his frustrations and travails and ultimately in his tortured death, a God who loves him, then you will be much closer to dying well.

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” (1 Thess 4:13-14)

Mental Contortions on Pentecost

This past Sunday, all around the world, non-charismatic churches which observe the church calendar engaged in a fascinating annual display of cognitive flexibility. Pastors everywhere talked about the first Pentecost, at which the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled in glorious fashion, ordinary disciples spoke in tongues and the Spirit began to work wonders on a dramatic scale. It’s a date that invites messages and sermons on spiritual gifts and empowering among even the meekest of quiet, traditional congregations.

We see this empowerment on the pages of our Bibles but we may find it hard to locate in our churches, and be grateful that Paul includes not just prophecy, tongues, healing and other acts of power, but also teaching, serving, mercy, administration, etc. (cf. Rom 12:6-8; 1 Cor 12:8-10, 28; Eph 4:11). While the sermon at my church didn’t focus on this, it is not unusual for preachers to point to the use of ordinary “gifts”—talents, really—as representing the works of the Spirit in Acts.

When I look around at the churches I have attended, I do not see prophecy or tongues or anything demonstratively miraculous going on aside from the very gradual miracle of sanctification. And those whom I would point to as particularly gifted in teaching, administration, etc., did not appear to receive those gifts at conversion. Notions of common grace aside, why do we ascribe those to the Spirit in the same vein as the gifts bestowed on the church on and after the first Pentecost?

This is where the mental contortions come in: We know what happened to the early church and our doctrine tells us we are inheritors of that tradition, yet we see none of the power they experienced. This is ironic in the age of the Pentecostal revivals of the 20^th century, an era where the greatest church growth is in the global South, often being led by charismatic movements. These can’t be explained away by pointing to charismatic abuses; many of these churches are experiencing genuine movements of the Spirit which include the very gifts which we are absent in churches like mine. Rather than face this fact head-on, we succumb to the temptation to squint until we can convince ourselves that our experience is just as first-century-Pentecostal as theirs.

In March of this year I set myself a task of spotting where the Spirit is active for 21 days. No repeats, no historical events, just current events which are consistent with Scripture’s M.O. of the Spirit. It wasn’t easy—both because I, like others, am unused to seeing the Spirit around me, and because of the no-repeat rule. (The work of the Spirit, like the work of rain and sunshine on flowers, is often repetitive.) 

On a global scale I observed acts of mercy and kindness, such as Christiane Van Heerden who teaches a pre-school in rural South Africa and makes care package for child victims of rape as they prepare to testify in court. I saw acts of courage, such as the Orthodox priests risking their lives and praying on the frontlines in Kiev despite government warnings, and the spread of the gospel in Bali in the midst of a sometimes violent Hindu majority. On a national level, I saw the Spirit working in individuals, as in Malcolm Gladwell’s return to faith and the efforts of the mother of Jordan David to forgive his murderer. A powerful work of the Spirit is seen in the volunteers of the Kairos prison ministry who bake literally hundreds of cookies for prison residence, a simple act of generosity which has a profound effect on the prison residents who receive them.

Most importantly, on a local level I began to see things which I believe are the work of the Spirit. I saw Christians coming into the presence of God confident that his love for them was greater than any parent: ‘And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”’ (Galatians 4:6). I saw my wife and others from our church went downtown to serve food to the needy at Cameron Community Ministries. (I should also include my occasional experiences of the Spirit in prayer, Bible study and worship.)

In my own small group of believers, I saw what Gordon Fee calls our “lavish experience of the Spirit”. Well, perhaps it isn’t exactly “lavish”, but if you are there you see that we care for one another (1 Cor 12:25); pursue one another's good (1 Thess 5:15); bear one another's burdens (Gal 6:2); and consider one another better than ourselves (Phil 2:3). I saw zeal for service on the part of the elders of our church I am privileged to be friends with (Rom 12:11), who sacrifice blood sweat and tears, with little reward in sight. And I see my friends who have adopted or married inter-racially, or come from inter-racial families. This racial unity is one of the most powerful acts of the Spirit; “For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us” (cf. Eph 2:14-18).

What do all of these have in common with tongues and prophecy and healing? They are out-breaking of the kingdom so we might better spread the gospel and more effectively love and minister to one another, and they are experiences which go beyond simple exercise of natural talents.

That does not mean we have nothing to learn from the first-century church’s experience of the Spirit, or the charismatic tradition. This tradition offers an immanence of the Spirit which can strengthen faith and help us shake off our torpor. We should pray boldly for the works of the Spirit, including those charismata which require us to be uncomfortably vulnerable. Or we are too timid—or too comfortable—to break ranks and try something new?

What we should never do is sell the Spirit short and mistake the talents of common grace for the charismata. Make no excuses for God. Look reality in squarely in the eye, ask God to show you where his Spirit is at work, and then ask him to use you in even greater ways.

Graphic from wikimedia commons.