No More Birthdays for Us
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. (Psalm 73:26)
Today is my wife's birthday. It is also her last birthday. Don't worry; Jill is not at death's door. Our five-year-old grandson, Gordie, is making sure that doesn't happen. About the same time I had my birthday, Gordie was recognizing the reality of death. His answer was, "Baba, you are too old. You cannot have any more birthdays. Mimi, your next birthday is the last one." Gordie's answer to death's reality is to stop allowing those he loves who are getting long in the tooth to stop having birthdays. If you don't have a birthday, you can't get older. Brilliant!
Gordie is a wise, old soul. Like philosophers over the centuries, our five-year-old ponders the reality of life's earthly finitude. Confucius (551-479 BCE) did not specifically address whether there was an afterlife, but his later Taoist followers affirmed that meditation and living a moral life are the paths to immortality. The Greek philosopher Socrates (470-399 BCE) believed in the soul's immortality. Socrates affirmed that death is not evil but fundamental to the soul's liberation.
Even non-religious philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900 CE) attempt to contemplate the pain of death. "It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death!" Nietzsche's answer is to focus on our present life because there is nothing after, and concentrating on our death can only hurt life's present moment. Live and love while you can because life is finite.
As people of faith in our Triune God, death is a reality, but so is life eternal. We should live every moment of life to the fullest, but not because this life is short and afterward, nothing. We can live fully now because there is the promise of the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, re-creating, redeeming, and sustaining us for all eternity. We can live fully now without having to ignore death. Instead, like Socrates, we are not fearing an evil death but pondering our being in the loving arms of a God who will continue to restore us. Thank you, Gordie, for not letting us ignore our life or death. Instead of fearing our birthdays as one step closer to the grave, we can celebrate birthdays as one step closer to our citizenship in the new heaven and earth! Maybe Gordie will let us celebrate our 62nd birthdays next year, after all?!