A Tiny, Forgettable, Dying Life

Psalm 103:8-18

  

I want to live a long time.  So I do stuff.

I wear a seat belt.

I run or workout three or four days a week.

I don’t eat bacon as often as I’d like.

I tweet.

When I drink beer, I shoot for quality, not quantity.  It’s more expensive.  But it’s better for the liver.

I wear these blue Adidas occasionally.

Don’t judge me.  I’m 44.  I’m in a midlife crisis.  My kids asked me the other day what it’s like to know that over half your life is already past.

On this night, we come to acknowledge and confess together that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try – we cannot keep ourselves alive forever.  If all goes well, we can manage for awhile.  But not forever. 

 

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (v. 13).

When Remy was young, and eager to excel at potty training, he once tried to trick us by placing black rocks in the little plastic potty.  I remember how excited he was when he called us over to the potty, saying, “Look!”  His heart was in the right place.  I suppose if we’d wanted to play hardball, we could have taught him a lesson about telling the truth.  But we didn’t.  He was a little boy, anxious to learn how to potty, and eager for his parent’s approval.

Oliver is not deceptive like Remy.  He just spills things.  All children spill things.  But our Oliver has taken this to a level of accomplishment I never thought possible.  He talks with his hands.  He tells stories and reviews movies with excitement. He can focus on an interesting conversation, but he can’t always focus on where his milk is.  Several times I have seen him set his milk on the uneven edge of something while telling a story, and over it goes.  Sure, there have been a few times when I’ve gotten frustrated at one of his spills.  But for the most part, we roll our eyes, and say something like, “Well don’t just sit there, go get a towel!”  Spills happen.  Kids shouldn’t be thrown in prison for it.

“As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him” (v. 13) . . . for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (v. 14).

I’ve officiated plenty of funerals where I pronounce over the gravesite, “Earth to earth; ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.  I don’t dodge it.  It’s there.  I know there will come a day when I won’t be here.  Life will go on without me.  It even feels good, in a way, to tell that truth about ourselves.

But even telling the truth, I feel anxious.  What will my life have amounted to?  Will it have been enough?  Did I love enough?  Did I love my wife and kids enough?  Did I love my friends enough?  Did I do good work?  Did I invest in anything that will last? Did I share enough?  Did I laugh enough?  Will I be remembered?  Did my life remind anyone that there is hope? 

I know the answer to every single one of these questions.  The answer is “no.”  No, by a whole host of different measures, my life didn’t measure up.  No, I didn’t love enough.  No, my work could have been better.  No, not much I’ve done will last.  No, I didn’t share as much as I could have.  No, I didn’t laugh enough.  No, my life was not a very clear sign that there is reason to hope.

Who has given me this dying life?  Who gave me this life, so utterly fragile, so vulnerable to disease and accident, so prone to get wires crossed, so susceptible to decay and deterioration?  Who gave me this tiny, forgettable, dying life?  

. . . for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust” (v. 14).

As we begin the season of Lent, let us remember that our lives are dying lives.  And let us remember our baptism.  In baptism, we are not called to anxiously resist our life span.  Nor are we called to madly prolong the time we have.  Rather, our baptism calls us to a new kind of intensity and depth, to love and goodness, to self-control and modesty.  Our baptisms invite us to agree with God, who remembers how we are formed.

And so tonight we come to be crossed with dust.  To let this mark upon us be a kind of prayer for the dying.  We are dust, and to dust we shall return.  And we walk this way, alongside our Lord Jesus who is himself headed towards Jerusalem.  He too is headed for death.  The Lord of life – yes he is headed for death.  And he goes there ahead of us, so that we do not face death alone. 

Remember your baptism.  Dying life is still life.  There’s still time.  Time for joy.  Time for love.  Time for intensity and depth and goodness.  Time to travel.  To take walks.  To embrace.  To drink coffee.  To read books.  To make pancakes.  All is not lost.  There is time.  Not unending time.  But baptized time.  And that is enough.