Final endings. And new beginnings.

I’ve thought about grief and death a lot this year. Not by choice. Really, who would think about those things by choice? No, this year I’ve lost people who have impacted my life in a real and personal way.

Death is the last great taboo in my culture – at least one of them anyway. Talk about gay marriage, human cloning, genetically modified animals (even humans), that’s fine. Even vampirism (the real blood-sucking kind) has lost its stigma. But don’t talk about death.

The problem is, all of those other things probably don’t affect most of us in a very tangible way. But we all have to die someday. One day the world will remember us no more. And even if we do something so dramatic that it changes the face of the world as we know it, that’s no guarantee of our name living on beyond our mortal lives. How many young adults really know who the first person in space was, or who invented electricity? How many know who Stalin or Hitler were, or of the millions of lives they were responsible for extinguishing? You’d probably be lucky to find a teenager who knows the names of both our Prime Minister and our Premier – hey, I have enough trouble remembering!

Yes, we’re all going to die – and eventually be forgotten.

I was walking through St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne a few days ago, contemplating life after receiving news that morning that a friend had passed away two months ago. I didn’t know, and so I have missed the funeral. I’m not upset that I wasn’t informed – there were many others who knew him better than I. Probably not many people knew that he wasn’t just an old professor of mine, but that I once worked with him; or that over the last several years we caught up every few months or so for a cuppa and some wonderful conversation; or that he included me on his postcard list when he went away. Probably he impacted my life far more than I impacted his – that was the sort of person he was. He was exceedingly generous with his time and his knowledge.

He will be sorely missed by the academic community and he has left an amazing legacy of published knowledge and ground-breaking research behind. Having received official decorations, his name will probably live on longer than most. And I am struggling with the grief that I feel at his passing.

Maybe it is because of the wonderful person he was and how he touched my life. Maybe it’s worse because I have also attended the funerals of my 29 year old cousin and my father-in-law in the second half of this year following tragically unprepared for deaths. Maybe it’s because I am not able to share the grief with others, having missed the funeral, and having scarce contact with anyone else who knew him in a similar way. Possibly some may think my grief disproportionate to the situation.

We really don’t do death very well here. You’re allowed to cry for a while if it was an immediate family member, especially if they died ‘before their time’. But don’t show too much emotion if it’s not, and certainly not after the funeral. Pull yourself together and get on with it – at least in public.

We don’t know what to do with someone who is broken down and crying. We pat them sympathetically and look awkward. Particularly if it’s a year or two after the event, or if it was an unborn child that ‘never really was’ anyway. Allowing our grief to touch us means that we have to think about what is causing us to grieve in the first place.

It’s not just the confrontation of losing people deeply cared about, it’s the confrontation with death itself, and the reminder that everything is temporary. The world looks nothing like it did a few hundred years ago, and in a few hundred more it will look completely different again. That’s if it even lasts that long, if those apocalyptic films are anything to go by.

It’s not just about the loss of things that were and things that could have been, and things that will never be. It’s about coming face to face with the reality that our time here is brief and fleeting – dust blowing around in the wind.

And what are we here for anyway? Is it to build a multi-national business empire or invent something that will change the lives of people after us? People that will forget who we were anyway. In any case, will it REALLY change their lives? After all, they too will die one day. It could all seem quite pointless if you think about it too much.

That’s if this life on earth, ending in death, is all that there is.

If I believed that, I think I would sink into an irreversibly deep depression. People I love will continue to die. I will die. I will be forgotten.

No, there has to be more. I know there is more. I am not here by accident, but by design. I have been lovingly crafted by the Creator who Loves. Who loves me DESPITE who I am or what I have done. Who will be waiting for me on the other side of death’s door with open arms and a life that will never come to an end. So I have no need to fear death for myself.

But what of the ones I love? Will they be with me there when they pass through this door? More than the thought of losing them in this life, I fear the thought of not having them after death.

But God makes it very clear that we all have our own choices to make in this life, we all have a free will, and we all have the ability to choose well (Romans 2:14-16). God did not make us automatons, but agents of free will. God is the God of freedom, not captivity.

As much as I dread the thought, not everyone I love will choose the same path as me. I cannot make anyone choose my path – where would be the freedom in that? All I can do is live my chosen life in an exemplary way that makes people want what I have. I want people to hunger after the peace and contentment I’ve found even when things around me seem so rocky and full of despair. I’d be only too happy to share those things with them.

As we prepare for our ‘Mission’, this is what I think it really means. I do not plan to go anywhere to change people. I can’t do that, only God can. I set out to go wherever I go, being who I am. And who I am is someone who has found freedom, contentment and peace, knowing where my path is ultimately leading.

A Christmas Homily

Christmas has come and Christmas has gone.
Again.



It has become such a commercial enterprise that I fear even I have become subliminally affected by the tides of consumerism. The other day I wondered whether I should still have my outdoor lights twinkling away, although the twelve days of Christmas were not even half over.* A couple of years ago I was at Myer** on Christmas Eve around lunch time and the staff were already pulling down the Christmas decorations. I presume the big rush was so that they’d have to stay back for fewer hours on Christmas Eve in order to put up the Boxing Day Sale decorations.

The world I live in seems to be all about easing every dissatisfaction we have. Even I can get caught up in the temporary thrill of shopping - only to be dismayed by the credit card bill when the sheen of the new object has long worn off. But shopping is the new religion here. You only have to head to one of the local shopping centres (which look more like palaces of old!) on a Sunday to find out where so much of our population is spending its time.

We pretty much have deregulated shopping hours here in Victoria. It doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is, it’s usually possible to buy whatever you fancy. No need to have your gratification delayed. Your need (or want), meets the supplier’s greed. Where there’s money, there’s a way... Not 4 km down the road we have a Kmart** that is open 24 hours a day – only closing two days a year on Christmas day and Good Friday. Amazingly, those two days are still Christian holidays; although I’m sure fewer and fewer know of their significance.

These days mark the beginning and the end of the life of the most Amazing Man who ever walked this earth. Fully God, He deigned to become fully man as well and entered this world in the least likely of surroundings. A King was laid to sleep in the hay amongst the bleating of animals and the smell of dung.

Just as His entry into this world was somewhat inauspicious, so was His exit from it. He was strung up on a cross like a common criminal, even though he’d done nothing wrong. And the time in between His birth and death, while certainly controversial, was not the kind of life we think of when we imagine how a King lives. He was the child of a carpenter, He laboured with His hands. During His ministry years He travelled without luggage or servants and often didn’t even know what He would eat that day or where He would lay His head – sounds more like a homeless person to me

So why DID Jesus live such an ‘ordinary’ life – devoid of all the comforts which would have rightly been His? He could have summoned up banquet tables, luscious linens and soft, downy bedding simply by opening His mouth.

But He didn’t.

I don’t think Jesus thinks these things are bad, but He does talk about them being a distraction. One day a man approached Jesus, asking how He could enter God’s kingdom. Jesus said He would need to give away all of His worldly wealth. The man basically freaked out and ran away. Jesus didn’t ask this of everyone. He often stayed in the homes of wealthy people and enjoyed their hospitality. But He did ask His disciples to leave behind their possessions and follow Him. They were on a focussed mission, and it wasn’t time to be distracted by accumulating treasure on earth that moth and rust would only destroy in the end.

‘Things’ can be good. God doesn’t want us to shun all of our material possessions and cut ourselves off from the world. God blesses us and showers us with the things we need, and often with much, much more than we need, so that we can shower others with blessings. But these ‘things’ should never become a distraction.

There will be times in all of our lives when God wants us to take our eyes off of the things of this world. I know for myself, as we prepare to serve God in Russia, there is a part of me that mourns the loss of my ‘things’. I certainly won’t be able to take many of them with us, and what do I do with the ones that we don’t take? What can I bear to part with, and what am I prepared to pay storage fees for? When we get there, we won’t have some of the creature comforts we now take for granted. I also love where we live. We have the most wonderful neighbours, the location is superb, the house meets our needs and the rent is reasonable. We don’t own a house, so when we leave here, we are almost guaranteed never to be able to live in this place again. Where would we live when we come back, whenever that is?

When I think about these things, I try to remind myself that while these concerns are real, they are not my concerns. They are distractions, and I need to hand them over to God. He is the one who has called us, and He knows every in and out of our situation. Time and again I have seen God solve the ‘problems’ in our lives in creative ways. He is the Creator after all. What am I worried about?

So, at this time of Christmas, and as we look forward to the New Year, it is a good time to think about what the distractions in our lives may be. Are they drawing our focus away from the vision God has given us? What has God called you to do? I challenge you to cast your cares upon Him who cares for you, and realign your focus. It’s going to be an exciting year!

* Yes, the 12 days of Christmas start at Christmas and end at Epiphany in January, they don’t end on Christmas day as appears to be a mistaken notion in some of the advertising I’ve seen.
** In case this means nothing to you, it’s a higher end department store
** This is a discount deparment store