UNTIMELY DEMISES

Humorous tombstone inscriptions;

“I told you I was sick.”

“I made some good deals. I made some bad ones. I really went in the hole on this one.”

“1902-2000 - An Untimely Demise”.

My Grandmother passed away at 96 years old – and she was ready. She struggled with it but she also willed it with a special sort dignity in the end. The body was shutting down. In her life she’d seen it all – many times over. The redundancy of it all occurred to her. It was a long night and her breathing came hard, strong and deliberate under an oxygen mask that she kept swiping away. When she became unconscious, she would react to the touch of your hand in hers with a squeeze and her grip had an urgency and a will about it. Her countenance transformed by the hour before those of us who sat in vigil. It was hard to watch. When rest came it was a relief but it was “untimely”. I didn’t want her to go but I accepted it. I loved her and enjoyed her and had memories of her as far back as I can remember. And she had become a cadaver. Death is not good. Though she was 96, it was an untimely death. It was grim and macabre. I am thankful for the fond memories I have of my Grandma that keep her alive and ageless in my mind.

 All death is unseemly and untimely. All death is grim. Death is indeed a demise. It is everyone’s demise. It will be my demise. It will also be my liberation and release into eternity with my Lord. I look forward to the day I see my loving Lord, Jesus Christ, face to face, but I still have work to do here.

I have lived long enough to have prayed for the recovery of many a loved one, or another’s loved one. I have been asked again and again to pray for another or even someone I don’t really know. That’s not easy because I don’t believe in superficial prayer and so I pray more generally in those cases. And that is good because those more general prayers are not distorted as much by my emotions. I have witnessed the youthful and the elder struggle with and resist the “demise”. My prayers have been rewarded by a few temporal recoveries. And every one of those recoveries eventually resulted in a later untimely, inevitable, demise. I have learned to check my prayers and to be more deliberate about my supplications and the intercessory thoughts that I lift up lest they be too emotional, or frantically futile or merely empty robotic responses to pleas by desperate people who are losing hope.

The will of the living would be for the ludicrous notion of eternal recovery every time here in this world. This world that goes around and around spinning new life in and old life out. Why do we wish for such a hopeless thing? Perhaps it is because this world is what we know. It is that with which we are familiar. Most prayer in this regard seeks to prevent the spinning out. It’s really an uninformed notion. 

It wasn’t long before the newly emancipated Israelite slaves began to moan about the uncertainty of their freedom and they began to hunger for that with which they were familiar – the certain slavery and death of Egypt. Egypt had been their demise.

The illusion of life in this world and of vibrant, non-aging immortality in it is a tease. We are all a portrait of Dorian Gray. Yes, this life has its moments of beauty and love and fellowship and vibrant animation to be enjoyed and savored. But none of that is something to be clutched at because, at the root of it all – it is all passing away.

There is a lie that there is hope in denying death in this world. But the truth is that we, those we love and the things we adore will all, most assuredly, be spun out. Of that we all have the utmost proof. But spun out to what? That’s the real question. Uncertainty for many – for most. And who has ever come back to tell the tale? Well, if you choose to believe it, the Bible tells of a few … and of One significant One. In time, I begin to realize that in order to live a sane life I must not live with regret in the past nor in fear of the future but firmly here and now - savoring the moment and simply doing the next thing the best I can.

Regarding the “demise”, praying for “our” outcome against the magnitude of what is going on is really pathetically uninformed. There is no power, no truth in it. We all slide down a slippery slope toward that gaping mouth of demise. Or can we avert it?

There is a verse in the Bible that goes like this, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” Jesus said that. I cannot help reflecting on this with a conclusion that clutching at this life is like reaching to gain the whole world. If the Bible is right, such clutching risks losing one’s soul. Jesus predicated those words with these (Matthew 16:25), "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for MY sake will find it."

With the inevitability of “demise” all about, can anything be salvaged? Can anything be saved?

There is another verse that goes like this, “Do not lay up for yourself treasure on earth where rust and moths corrupt and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up your treasure in heaven where none of that happens.” Perhaps, my treasure is my soul and it can be salvaged. Perhaps my soul and only my soul can be saved. Laying up treasure is not about tithing and extravagant giving and donations. Oh, with a proper heart, all of that will manifest as a matter of course in one's life. Laying up our treasure in heaven is hoping in heaven an trusting God with our treasure - our soul - resting in Him.

Yes, I have learned to check my prayers and to be more deliberate about my supplications and intercessory thoughts when it comes to my encounters with the “demise” that surrounds me and threatens us all. The outcome seems to be out of my hands. It would seem that there is no hope.

The Apostle Paul conveys some very encouraging words to some close friends of his in the city of Thessaloniki about death when he writes, “do not be uninformed about death so you don’t grieve as those who have no hope.” When my Grandmother died I grieved her loss and I miss her. But I do not grieve without hope for her. I believe with hope that she passed with her soul not lost. Now that my Grandmother is gone I need not pray for her and certainly not to her (I offer I Timothy 2:5 for clarity on that). My Grandma’s soul destiny was cast when she passed and she is on with it.

So what it that hope that Paul and his friends are not without? Faith and hope go hand in hand. The Author of the book of Hebrews wrote that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Also in the book of Hebrews (Chapter 6:19-20) you will read, “This hope we have as an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast and which enters the Presence behind the veil (beyond death on the other side - the throne room of God?) where the Forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus…”  Jesus is our Forerunner and the hope for our souls after our demise.

According to the Bible (in Romans 10:9) our hope is this, “If you declare with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”. “Heart” belief (true faith?) saves your soul for what is to come after. You may have heard that called eternal life. This saving action is called the “grace” of God. In other words; the favor of God Who gives freely to anyone who humbles him or herself to receive it. Paul amplified on this in another letter to another group of dear friends in a city called Ephesus, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through your faith in that grace alone and not in anything you have done; it is the gift of God, not by anything you can or could ever do – so no one can take credit for what God alone does and can do.”  

What is “eternal life”?  Jesus said this about that in a prayer to His Father (God) as recorded in the Gospel of John, Chapter 17, “Now this is eternal life; that they may know (have intimate relationship with) You (God), the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Simple yet difficult if someone prefers to clutch only at what they see. Simple, yet impossible for someone who believes the lie that this is all that there is, that staying here is better than moving on into eternity with a soul intact.

The lie is also this; “You don’t need to accept any gift. Soul salvation is automatic.”

I believe in no such default. In fact, I believe that the default is death to soul unless God intervenes by grace and that I have faith in that grace.

God did intervene. He sent us Jesus Christ to deal with our demise.

What do you believe? What do you want to believe? What’s your answer to your imminent demise?

The Pallet of the Paralytic

My Wife and I recently set out for a late autumn adventure the first week of December driving roundtrip to northern Florida from New England to particulate in a sailing regatta. It was a rigorous endeavor and we did the distance in two days instead of the planned three. That gave us an extra day to “rest up” before the regatta. When we arrived at our modest motel room I crashed and Denise opted to work off her road raggedness by taking a walk around the downtown for a little light exploration.

The next day we awoke to a warming muggy Florida Friday and Denise talked me into a walk downtown in the still of the dawn to find a place for coffee. She took me down deserted streets and lanes and our “walk” started to take us many blocks from “downtown” center. I was getting a little anxious and we got into a little bit of a “we’re lost” argument until I was overcome with a still, calming voice that suggested that I “knock it off”, relax and relinquish to Denise’s instincts (and experience from her previous evening’s exploration). Within minutes we turned a corner and there before us was small store-front with a sign that read: “Palate Coffee Brewery”. That was it.

I’m thinking; ‘Pilates Studio’ and how are we going to get decent coffee in there? But it was indeed a Coffee House and not a studio, and so we walked in. As we ordered a latte and a hot chocolate I could hear the subtle sound of music from “Hillsong” in the background. I wondered; “could this be a “Christian” coffee house?” Alas, it was.

We spent several hours at that place and met everyone who walked in; the local President and CEO of the Christian Chamber of Commerce (of all things …) and he did most of the introductions. It turns out that Fridays are when local business leaders congregate there throughout the day. We received the testimony of a local ministry leader who shared her passion for local homeless children before a gathered group. The café owner was a Pastor and the place was set up as a not for profit to support missions. The staff were all volunteers/barista trainees (which explained why it took so long for my latte). I also learned that they trained their barista’s so they would go on to work for good paying jobs at other cafes in the go-go Central Florida Market which includes Orlando.

When I was asked what I “did” I, of course, mentioned my commitment with “Truth at Work” and they wanted to know more. I have since introduced them to the leadership of Truth at Work in Indianapolis and who knows where that will lead. My wife and I quickly recognized that our trip to Florida was not really about a sailing regatta – but rather - about this encounter.

Before we left the café I asked the proprietor the significance of the name of the place and he said that it had to do with the paralytic on the pallet in the Book of Mark. Then as I looked around I saw that the interior décor was all of pallet pieces and even the tables were made from parts of recycled pallets. It occurred to me that there was probably some deeper meaning to the significance of the “Pallet” and so we talked about that briefly. I asked if he had ever preached a message about the “pallet” and he had not, so I committed on the spot to do a study on it as soon as I was able.

Here is that study:       

Anchoring Verses:

John 5:7-9 ⁷ The invalid (paralytic) answered, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am coming [to get into it myself], someone else steps down ahead of me.” ⁸ Jesus said to him, “Get up; pick up your pallet and walk.” ⁹ Immediately the man was healed and recovered his strength, and picked up his pallet and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

Mark 2:1-12 After a few days, Jesus went back to Capernaum, and people heard that he was at home. ² So many gathered that there was no longer space, not even near the door. Jesus was speaking the word to them. ³ Some people arrived, and four of them were bringing to him a man who was paralyzed. ⁴ They couldn’t carry him through the crowd, so they tore off part of the roof above where Jesus was. When they had made an opening, they lowered the mat (pallet) on which the paralyzed man was lying. ⁵ When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Child, your sins are forgiven!”

⁶ Some legal experts were sitting there, muttering among themselves, ⁷ “Why does he speak this way? He’s insulting God. Only the one God can forgive sins.”

⁸ Jesus immediately recognized what they were discussing, and he said to them, “Why do you fill your minds with these questions? ⁹ Which is easier—to say to a paralyzed person, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take up your pallet, and walk’? ¹⁰ But so you will know that the Human One has authority on the earth to forgive sins”—he said to the man who was paralyzed, ¹¹ “Get up, take your pallet, and go home.”

¹² Jesus raised him up, and right away he picked up his pallet and walked out in front of everybody. They were all amazed and praised God, saying, “We’ve never seen anything like this!”

# # # #

The Bible contains innumerable accounts of signs and wonders to which the people always exclaim, “we have never seen anything like this before!” and so, again, I experienced a divine encounter that brought me before authentic believers in a place I have never been before. And they were not strangers to me. Sojourners encountering brethren sojourners. Aliens encountering aliens - in a place called “Palate Coffee Brewery”.

Signs and wonders and yet multitudes still did not believe! So many signs and so many wonders, yet so many turned and left when it became the least bit difficult to selflessly submit to the Lord. Jesus even asked His twelve intimate ones, “will you leave Me too?”

The call of Jesus is personal - not spectacle - and not general. The miracles are personal and the call is personal. To forgive sin is far greater than to perform a sign or a miracle – to cure a mere temporal physical ailment. All die the “first” death (referred to in Revelation 2, 20 and 21).

Yet, the darkness resists the light and cringes from it. We were children of darkness and in that darkness we yearn for a distorted shelter “with” our sin. Sin that never satisfies.

In Christ we find deliverance “from” our sin. He is our strength – not us. The paralytic of John 5 “recovers” his strength, picks up his pallet and walks. How long had that man struggled without Jesus and without power? We, like he, clutch at our sin because we have become comfortable in it. Like the slaves of Egypt we hunger for the familiar chains. What obscures our ability to see the power of Christ that will allow us to rise up and walk? The answer is the one thing that always amazed Jesus when He encountered it: Authentic Faith – the substance of things hoped for – the evidence of things unseen (Heb 11).

Oh, how those chains addict us, keep us and - in submission to what is false – blind us and restrain us from the glory of God. The myth of Pharaoh, the myth of scarcity, the fear of want versus the lyric of abundance and freedom and the gift of eternity restrains us from TRUTH.

The paralytic at the pool of Bethesda and the paralytic lowered through the roof of that cottage in Capernaum both lay on a pallet. Central to these two scenes is Jesus’ forgiveness of their “sins” foremost. The paralysis, the physical condition, is secondary. The “cure” is merely a contrast that can be comprehended by mere men to the glory of what Jesus represents – eternal fellowship with God through Jesus – deliverance from the paralysis of sin.

The Greek root word(s) used for “pallet” in the New Testament texts here are; KLINE and KRABBATOS which relate to the words KLINIDION and KLINE from which we get the modern words; “recline” and “incline”. The Greek root words refer to the following; a couch, recliner, to be far spent, to bow down, to turn in flight, to wear away, a mattress.

As we let the Greek root word meanings sink in it becomes apparent that the pallet is the excuse of man – his submission and retreat toward sin. We recline in our fallen-ness – our paralysis is our giving-in to the sin. We are indeed far spent and bowed down to our sin and we do indeed turn in self righteous flight from our recovery in Christ. I recall an excerpt from the eloquent verses of the poem “The Hound of Heaven” by Francis Thompson;

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind;

and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

Up vistaed hopes I sped; and shot, precipitated, adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears … from those strong Feet that followed - followed after… but with unhurrying chase, and unperterbed pace.

Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

They beat, and a Voice beat … more instant than the Feet

“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

We are worn down and sin weary. We are betrayed by our sin.

Our “pallet” is our responsibility; our role. We are cured by Jesus and once we are renewed through Him we take up that responsibility and the bridling of our old sin nature with it – with the exquisite assistance of the Holy Spirit – our Paraclete.  We pick up and carry our pallet as Jesus commanded those two paralytics because it no longer carries us and nor do any who were the bearers of that old sin pallet in that cottage in Capernaum or anywhere else. Neither do we lounge or take our rest upon that pallet of affliction any longer.

Jesus said, in Matthew 11; “Come to Me, all you who labor and are weary, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

 

Forgiveness IS healing. Jesus is healing. With Jesus, sin falls away and with it the crutches and paralysis of sin. The rolled up pallet is an echo of our past dependence on sin.

And so I thank God for the precious and most divine encounter my Wife and I recently had with the blessed Proprietors and supporters of the “Palate Coffee Brewery” in Sanford, Florida for bringing me closer to my consciousness of  the sin nature that will always lure me to recline in complacency, become ensnared and paralyzed by sin, resting on my pallet and recoiling from the power of His Holy Spirit to overcome my eternal terminal illness.

I must take up my pallet and walk by His power.

Galatians 5:1: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be ensnared again with a yoke of bondage.”

2 Timothy 2:4: “No one engaged in warfare entangles himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please those who enlisted him as soldier.”

To my brethren in Sanford, Florida, I am thankful for your hospitality and the encouragement of your lives. I am even more thankful for the sovereignty of God that guides the circumstances of my life through His Holy Spirit and so I thank the guiding hand of The Holy Spirit for His control over my life. There are NO coincidences.

Blessings,

Bill