The Christmas commercials are back. They snuck their way into mid-November and fully interspersed themselves throughout Thanksgiving football games. If I see that boy open his present and yell one more time…
Yes, it’s that time of year again. While Santa is making a list and checking it twice, most of us are formulating our own lists. Have you started your Christmas list yet? While I haven’t actually written anything down, I can take a lawn mower and a blue North Face pullover off my list. I own them because they both belonged to dead men.
The lawn mower belonged to my wife’s grandfather who passed away. Another one of her relatives died of Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS). How do you put to words the feeling of wearing someone’s jacket that faced one of the most painful and lonely exits from this world?
“Humbling” is not sufficient. As I zipped the jacket up, I looked around the room at my other stuff. Ghostly names began to appear on everything- names of the people who could own my things when I’m gone. Juxtaposed with the idea of receiving Christmas gifts in a few weeks, the idea brought perspective if not wisdom.
What if your Christmas list had two columns:
Things I Want From Santa Person Who Will Get This When I Die
Our things will scatter to others (or the landfill) like the dandelion seeds in the spring breeze. Be honest: Which do you spend more energy envisioning- The empire you want to build with your life or the inevitable yard sale of your posthumous belongings? Like fools we fantasize a personal legacy certain to surpass the glory of ancient Rome. We craftily deny our mortality.
James warns us, “But the one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower.” (James 1:10) Similarly Isaiah proclaims, “A voice says, ‘Cry out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.’” It’s even more sobering to realize that in ancient Palestine, grass stayed green only a few weeks.
I don’t intend a dreary message with this blog, though rarely do we characterize death as anything but dark. In the Christmas season of giving and getting and amidst a lifetime of building things, we do our heart well to live in the truth of our mortality. The reality of death humbles us like nothing else. And in that light, the assurance of death becomes a merciful opportunity to surrender before the God who made us like grass yet cares about us down to the root, loves us wildly while we wither, and offers us hope for restoration worth far more than gifts or empires.
