DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

DEATH IS NO STRANGER TO ME

 

This is not a gloomy mindfulness. End of life is on my mind more frequently than it ever was in previous decades. The proximity of death is easily apparent to me, particularly because of my age.  I am 78 years old. Furthermore, the passing of close friends and acquaintances who are my contemporaries occurs with increased frequency. Two days ago another friend’s life on planet earth ended. She was four years older than me.  

I am no stranger to dying and death. At the age of 27 I began my work as a church pastor. For forty years one of my responsibilities was spending time with dying parishioners and residents of the community. I sat with families as their loved one weakened and I comforted them when the loved one died. Many who died were close personal friends. I had my own load of grief to manage. I officiated funerals within the churches that I pastored.  I lost count of how many hundreds of funerals that is. Death is not a stranger to me.

My grandparents and parents and most uncles and aunts and some cousins have died. We have been people of faith, not just any faith, but Christian faith. Early in my life and then through concentrated linguistic and theological investigation I confirmed for my own satisfaction that my faith rests on promise based on evidence. So I am content to trust that God was telling me the truth when he inspired writers to record that eternal life awaits those who trust that Jesus was divine and resided on earth for the purpose of atoning for human sin. I believe that Jesus’ own dying words to a dying convict promising him life in paradise was true, and is true still. What this comes down to is assurance and hope and peace. 

Yes, I have bought the whole meal deal. It’s a worldview that includes a future beyond life here. Not for one moment do I believe that it is easier or more intelligent to accept that life began spontaneously in some cell somewhere or through some cataclysmic celestial explosion. I rest my trust in a transcendent pre-existing God who created this remarkable universe and chose to fashion humanity in his image, and who has prepared something for us after this. I am unafraid and I am content.   

PIVOTING ON A DECISION - going to Rwanda

In mid December I was invited to consider joining a group of eight people who will travel in mid-January to Rwanda to share faith in Christ. In brief, groundwork has already been laid there for these eight people, each to have a translator and one other person accompany them to visit in family homes to share with residents how one can have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that results in the forgiveness of sin and a new way of living life by faith. The purpose is multi-fold, to bring people to saving faith in Christ, to train people to share faith, to establish a followup discipleship program for respondents. This is a help, and it becomes an investment in local Rwandan churches where there is risk.

An apology was extended to me for what was short notice for me, since I was required to raise my own funds for the trip. I needed to ascertain my own interest in such a venture and to consider my age, my physical and financial resources. I needed to face my fears and concerns. I took several days to determine my choice. And although I composed a letter with which to respond to the person who invited me, I also wrote a poem to help myself through the process of coming to a decision. Here is what I wrote.

PIVOTING ON A DECISION

I tangle between fear and faith

With a decision I must make

So little time to ponder

Yet with years enough to make me wise.

At my current age, health and means, 

Enthusiasm yields to caution that's untimely

Since only days remain in which to choose

An action that may lead to life or death.

The life or death equation is not my own

But that of whomever waits a day's flight from here

To whom I might go to share good news

That leads from death to life.

Fear derives from details over which I have no control.

Faith rests in One for whom all things are possible.

Does plunging headlong into ignored truths 

Equate with faith? I ask myself. 

Must I discount age, health and means to evidence my faith? 

Or might faith inform me that I should stay,

That I should pray for those who go?

Such is the tangle of my thoughts.

Good news is appropriate for me to share 

Not only there but here.

If I choose by faith not to go, the One will still deliver

Life-giving news in that distant place, 

And those to whom I might have gone

Will meet me when One brings us home.

© Ron Unruh, Dec 16, 2018

FLAGGING FAITH

FLAGGING FAITH

I watch, listen, and observe

Saddening signs of generations

Moving coldly from my base.

Here is what I see.

Flagging faith, not pennant-waving, flagging,

Fading of conviction, doubting,

Diminishing, losing confidence in long held beliefs.

Ancient tenets distrusted and dismissed.

Conceptions of God exposed to speculation.

Conjecture reigns supremely, ignoring holy texts,

Inducing hopelessness, post modern culture

Hungry for my offspring,

And I pray.

Must pray that God will show Himself

In mercy, grace and truth and pull them

Tightly to Himself so they with buoyancy,

Live and love life knowing

That God's promises are true.

© Ron Unruh, October 2014

FRIDAY THE 13TH

The 13th day of a month, falling on a Friday as it does today, and paired with a full moon, whose exceptional appearance earns it the designation of strawberry or honey moon, is very rare and it won’t happen again until 2049. I will be 107 years old. I don’t believe I will thrive and stay alive until then, and I don’t believe there is anything spooky about Friday the 13th. But many people do. I would prefer that people abandon superstition and believe this. The creator of everything that is visible and invisible anywhere, came to live here among us. Jesus was the image of the invisible God. By the time he came, his creation including humanity had been estranged from him through the pollution cause by human sin. He came in order to reconcile all of his creation to himself. He himself determined that such reconciliation required atonement. Jesus became that. He died on a Friday. His promise to a thief dying beside him was that the two would be united in paradise. God’s promise to us all is that whoever places exclusive faith in Jesus Christ will enjoy life that lasts forever with God. (based on scripture such as Colossians 1:15-19; John 3:16)