Breath of Life

You don’t have to be sick in order to be dying.

You don’t have to be dead in order to stop living.

Each day, there are things that we take up and things we let go, things we dedicate our lives to or give our time to, things that we do (or don’t do) that make us feel like a little piece of us dies and falls into the abyss.

How many of us have ever had to let go of something we hoped for? How many of us have ever had to let go of something we dreamed of? How many of us have let go of a loved one?  How many of us have ever let go of a piece of ourselves that seemed to be part of who we were for so long we wondered whether we would ever feel like ourselves again? Why do we do this? Why do we do those things that leave us looking in the mirror at our reflections, wondering how much of us is left under the façade that we lug around, trying to convince everyone else that we don’t know the grieving that comes in each daily death?

Perhaps we let go because we have the sense that God is drawing us into something new. Perhaps we let go because we have held on for so long that we have forgotten why we are holding on. Perhaps we let go because, in the end, we’re afraid all that we hold dear will be taken from us anyway and, if we let go of it before it is demanded of us, it might not hurt so much. Sometimes we lie to ourselves about death because it makes it a lot easier to go through life.

The problem is that when we’re convinced we’re alive, we forget that we are dead. We try to let go of all of the reminders that something isn’t quite right about us. We try to forget that, in our baptisms, we have died. And when we forget that, it’s awfully easy to forget that we have also been made alive. It’s easy to forget that life is a gift because we’re so busy treating it like a chore. It’s easy to treat life like it’s characterized by the absence of death.

Some of us swing to the other end of the pendulum, trying to fill life to the brim with activities and business and chores and fill our lives so full that it’s hard to digest all that has been packed in. If we’re going to notice the small things, breathe deeply, it has to be scheduled and – for the love – don’t do it for too long or the voices in your head will start rattling their cages. But this isn’t really living either.

We long for our lives to be full, filled, and fulfilling. A lot of the time, though, we look to do these things for ourselves. Even when we try to live “just right”, to follow the rules, to not be too busy and not too bored, not too obsessed with the things that we have done and not done, the relationships that we have begun and maintained or begun and ended, it’s really hard to convince ourselves we’re doing it right. It’s hard to not look at other peoples’ lives and think: “I must have missed a memo somewhere.” There must have been a day where they pulled everyone else aside and given them a secret to life that I haven’t figured out yet. Because the life that I’ve got isn’t quite the one I imagined.

We forget the baptismal promises made to us, fearing that we must have scrubbed off the cross the pastor made on our forehead, afraid we somehow lost our way and have strayed far enough off where we’re meant to be that we can’t be found. We place the saints further and further away from where we are. Whether they’re in heaven or curing the sick in India or preaching on a street corner or being persecuted for their faith, it’s a lot easier to recognize that we are sinners than it is to recognize we are saints. So instead of following Jesus, we spend our time focusing on trying to hide our sin, hide ourselves, to become someone else. And we start trying to let go of little pieces of ourselves, the little dependent bits, the bits that are embarrassing and weak and awkward or unsure. We forget that, in our baptisms, we are named sinners and we are proclaimed saints. We forget that we have already died and been risen with Christ. We forget that we walk in newness of life as children of God. We forget that all we seek to let go of has been taken up into Christ.

Because sometimes, I think we forget that we are his. We see Jesus coming for the perfect, for the good, for the successful. Surely Jesus is going to work through someone who has it a little more together, who is a little less sinful, a little less sinner and a little more saint. But, as one of my former professors aptly said, “Nowhere in the Bible does it say that the saints are super-good followers” (thanks for this, Rolf!).

In Revelation (were you wondering if I would ever get to the Bible? Be honest.), we hear the words that we say every week: “Salvation belongs to our God… and to the lamb! Blessing and glory and honor and might be to God forever and ever!” Who are these people? These are the people who have gone through the great ordeal. Though John of Patmos was likely writing during a time of persecution in Asia Minor, it seems bizarre that we would say these words each week in our liturgy. But, on the other hand, what is the power of saying these words along with those who have made it through the great ordeal? What does it mean to stand with those who are persecuted for their faith? What does it mean to proclaim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that “salvation belongs to our God” when the world looks to political leaders, financial stability, to technology and medicine as that which saves us? Sure, they might keep us from dying, but the prevention of death does not necessarily ensure the quality or preservation of life. Who are these, robed in white, and where have the come from? These are the ones that have come from the corners of creation, these are the ones who proclaim that “salvation belongs to their God, along with all blessing and honor and glory forever and ever,” even on the days it doesn’t seem true, the days it doesn’t feel true. These are the ones who have been buried with Christ and have risen with him; these are the ones who have put on Christ. Dear sinner-saints, the people who say these words are you.

It is never the super-good, or the super-righteous, or the super-perfect whom God blesses. God blesses the poor, the meek, the lowly; God sees us as we are, in the messes we create for ourselves, and proclaims that – in spite of all evidence to the contrary – we are saints. And we – in spite of all evidence to the contrary – confess that it is this God who determines who we are, not us. It is this God who fills our life with time and the capacity to work, the capacity to love, the capacity to endure, the capacity to laugh and for joy; it is this God that fills our cups to overflowing, who says it isn’t enough for life to be the absence of death. It is this God who – in Christ – taught us to look at death not as the end, but as the beginning. So, with each little death, with each time the sinner feels more real than the saint, you are invited to remember each day, each moment, each second is a new beginning. Each breath comes as gift, and, in God, there is never an end. One of my favorite authors, a great Sinner-Saint who died last September, puts it this way: "In a general way we concede that God made the world out of joy: He didn't need it; He just thought it was a good thing. But if you confine His activity in creation to the beginning only, you lose most of the joy in the subsequent shuffle of history. Sure, it was good back then, you say, but since then we've been eating leftovers. How much better a world it becomes when you see Him creating at all times and at every time; when you see the preserving of the old in being is just as much creation as the bringing of the new out of nothing. Each thing, at every moment, becomes the delight of His hand, the apple of His eye.” For all the times that you let go of the person you hoped you would be, you dreamt you’d become, for all the things that have been pried out of your fists as you prayed that God would somehow let them remain, for all of these, God never lets go, never gives up, never stops seeing you as the apple of His eye or the object of His delight.

God is always creating, at every moment, drawing sinners to Godself and proclaiming them saints. This is why, each week, we proclaim with the poor (in spirit), with those who mourn, with those who are meek, with those who hunger and thirst (for righteousness), with those who are merciful, with the pure in heart, with the peacemakers and the persecuted: “Salvation belongs to our God forever and ever!” because it tells the truth about who God is and who we are. We live under the shadow of God’s wing, confident that “The one who is seated on the throne will shelter us. We will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike us, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and he will guide us to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes."

And, whenever our earthly lives shall cease, the song will continue, connecting the heavens and earth in praise of the one whose imagination sees in every ending a new beginning and, in every death, new life.