Yesterday was a bitter-sweet day. We found out that a dear friend had passed away. She was an amazing woman who made a positive difference in the lives of so many people, and served Jesus with faith and compassion. After a long battle with cancer, she finally went to see her Lord face to face and doubtless hear the words, 'Well done my good and faithful servant.' She will be greatly missed, and yet she is now enjoying the wonder of heaven.
These two events came together for me with the words of Gandalf in Moria. Frodo, weary and homesick says, 'I wish the ring had never come to me...I wish none of this had happened.' Gandalf replies, 'So do all who see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.'
I don't know how often these words have been quoted and used in speeches, sermons, books, essays or blogs. But I do know they are as true today as when Tolkien wrote them many years ago. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
Our friend made the decision that the time she had was best invested in people. She didn't own property or have a share portfolio, she wasn't a world traveller, she didn't have a high-powered job, but there are scores of people whose lives have been blessed and changed by having known her. Our friend cared for the poor and needy and marginalised in society, and so walked in loving obedience to her Lord.
Death comes to all of us. There will be a time in the very, very distant future when I will no longer be around, I honestly find it hard to grasp this idea, but know it to be true. I am, however, thankful for the faith I have in God that when that day comes, it won't be a day when I greet death as a friend taking me to the other side, or, as Dylan Thomas put it, a day when I, 'Do not go gentle into that good night....rage, rage against the dying of the light.' Death is not my friend, he is the final enemy of the life that God has given to us, but neither is this life something to be held on to at all costs as though this is the end, and after this, darkness.
Jesus has defeated death, he proved it by the resurrection. At the end of Romans 8 Paul reminds us that nothing, not even death, can separate us from the love of God, and in 1 Cor. 15, 'Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O death, is your victory?.....But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.' Jesus himself, in Matthew 16 promises the disciples that even the gates of hell (a first century euphemism for death) cannot stand against the church, the called out people Jesus will build.
Yet too often the gospel and consequently the Christian life is reduced to, 'If you were to die today, are you sure of where you will spend eternity?' This is, without doubt, an important question, but it isn't the whole picture. Often this results in a 'decision' for Jesus, and then 'be good and work hard for the church so you get there.' This is not the gospel, this is not the abundant Christian life. It's important to know what will happen when this life is over. But I think a far better question, one that my friend answered well, is, 'What will you do with the time given to you?' Or, as I like to put it, 'The world is a mess, but God has started the process of setting things right through Jesus. Will you be a part of the answer or the problem?'
Too often our response to this question reduces to what we 'do' as in the legalism of a works-based faith or Christian workaholism. This is wrong. As has been noted many, many, many times, we are created as human-beings, not human-doings. The greatest commandments as noted by Jesus aren't, 'Work for the Lord your God....and for you neighbour as you work for yourself,' but 'Love the Lord your God....and your neighbour as yourself'! How will you use the time given to you? Will you love selflessly and generously? Will you truly show you are a Christian by your love? Will you put aside things for time with people? Will you invest in those who you will meet one day when this life is over, or in things that will decay and fade? Or, as Tom Wright brilliantly puts it, will you build for the coming kingdom, the redeemed new heaven and new earth?
My life is less than a blink in the millions of years this earth has been spinning. And yet it matters to God. My prayer is that in the time I have left I will be mindful to use it well, for people, for his glory, and build for that which is to come.
And on that note......go out and love someone today! Embrace them, encourage them, leave with them a deposit that may be unnoticed now, but resonates in eternity.
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