Shades of Life

It was the morning after the annual spectacular nighttime ceremony known as the Illumination of the Temple when Jesus, standing in the very place where the event had occurred only hours before, lifted his voice above the crowd and proclaimed the immortal words, "I am the light of the world" [John 8:12].

In ancient Israel, the Illumination of the Temple was the culmination of the annual Feast of Tabernacles. It took place in the Temple treasury before four massive candelabra topped with huge torches. According to Kent Hughes, the candelabra were as tall as the highest walls on the Temple, and at the top of the candelabra were mounted great bowls each of which held 65 liters of oil. There was a ladder for each candelabrum, and when evening came, the healthy young priests would carry the oil up to the great bowls and light the protruding wicks. Then huge flames would leap from the torches illuminating not only the Temple but all of Jerusalem. A modern day equivalent may perhaps be the Olympic flame but here there were twelve flames [perhaps one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel]. The Mishnah tells us that "Men of piety and good works would then dance before the candelabra with burning torches in their hands singing songs and praise and countless Levites would play on harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets as well as other instruments of music." Imagine the spectacle of fire, oil, heat, smoke, and perspiration as the priests whirled and danced before the enchanted and dazzled throng. Hughes continues by reminding us that this exotic rite celebrated the great pillar of fire [the glorious Shekinah cloud of God's presence] which led the Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness and spread its fiery billows over the Tabernacle.

Then imagine Jesus Christ standing in the same location merely hours after the fires had been extinguished, with the great charred torches still in place, lifting his voice and bellowing "I am the light of the world!" There could scarcely be a more emphatic way to announce the supreme truth of the universe. Christ was saying in effect, "The pillar of fire that came between you and the Egyptians, the cloud that guided you by day in the wilderness and illuminated the night and enveloped the Tabernacle, the glorious cloud that filled Solomon's Temple is me! ... "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." He is everything suggested by this sublime metaphor of light -- and so much more.

This immense truth that Christ is the very light of this world must be foundational to our thinking as we consider Ephesians 5:8-14. "For you were once darkness, but now are light in the Lord." [v. 8] We are light! It has been said by a number of preachers including Dr. Gary Barnhouse, and perhaps you have even heard it said, that "When Christ was in the world, he was like the shining sun. When the sun sets, the moon comes up. The moon is the picture of believers, the Church. The Church shines, but not with its own light. It shines reflected light. At times the Church has been a full moon dazzling the world with almost daytime light ... and at other times the Church has been a thumbnail moon, and in those days very little light shown on the earth. But whether the Church is a full or thumbnail moon, whether waxing or waning, it reflects the light of Christ. Our light does not originate with us."

But our text suggests even more than reflection -- we actually become light ourselves: "For you were once darkness, but now you are the light in the Lord." Hughes states that "our light is derived from him -- not a ray of it comes from ourselves. But somehow our incorporation in Christ allows us to actually be light, however imperfect." Peter says that we "participate in the divine nature" [2 Peter 1:4]. Hughes continues that "so authentic is our participation, so real is our light, that in eternity we will actually be part of the light ourselves." Jesus said as much in his Mystery Parables, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father" [Matthew 13:43]. C.S. Lewis even seems to concur as he writes "Nature is mortal. We shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol ... We are summoned to pass through nature beyond her to the splendor which she fitfully reflects." The heavens do reflect the glory of God. But we share in the glory of the Father in Christ -- and we shall be more glorious than the heavens. As Christians there is a glory awaiting us that involves, in some mysterious way, shining [not reflecting]. Somehow we are going to enter into the fame and approval of God, and we will be glorious beings far beyond description. The mysteries of Christ are endlessly amazing to ponder indeed!

But there is a caveat! Because we are light, we have a huge responsibility in the world. How are we who have been transferred from darkness to light to live? Paul commands us to "Live as children of light [for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth] and find out what pleases the Lord" [vv. 8-10]. In a word, Christ's light as it passes through the prisms of our lives should produce a sterling character. According to F.F. Bruce, goodness here implies generosity. Righteousness is integrity in all dealings with both God and man. And finally, truth is the absence of falsehood and deception. These are the ethics of light. When the light of Jesus is refracted through the prisms of our lives, there will be sanctifying shades of life for others to see. In this we "find out what pleases the Lord," and so do others.

Jesus spoke as much in his Sermon on the Mount, "You are the light of the world" [Matthew 5:14]. The more luminous our integrity -- our goodness, righteousness and truth -- the brighter the light. How can we shine more brightly? We must spend time alone with Jesus -- the Light -- in prayer, exposing our lives like Kodak film in the pre-digital era, to his presence so that his image, his very character, is melded into ours. If we do this, we can become spiritually like Moses when he descended Sinai after being alone with God -- his face shone with the light of God. This is our calling ... its time we stepped into it!

Happiness in a Capsule

Happiness in a capsule. This is our world. Prozac. Paxil. Lexapro. Xanax. Ativan. Millions are spent to advertise such medications. And billions are spent purchasing them. You don't even need a specific psychological trauma; just "depression" or "generalized anxiety," as if sadness were as treatable as Strep throat.

Now, of course, I know all too well that depression is real. After all, I see it every day. But I also know we overuse the word. Much of what passes for "depression" in our lives is really more dissatisfaction, a result of either setting the bar impossibly high or expecting treasures that we are unwilling to work for. I know people whose unbearable source of misery is their weight, their baldness, their lack of advancement in their career, or their inability to find the perfect mate, even if they themselves did not behave like one. To these people, unhappiness is a medical condition, an intolerable state of affairs. If pills can help, pills are taken.

But pills are not going to change the fundamental problem in the construction: wanting what we can't have. Looking for self-worth in the mirror. Layering work on top of work and still wondering why we aren't satisfied -- before working some more. I know. I've done all that. I've had periods in my life that I could not have worked more hours in the day without eliminating sleep altogether. I've piled on accomplishments. I've made fairly good money [for a non-surgeon]. I've earned accolades. And the longer I've gone after it, the emptier it has made me feel, like trying to pump air faster and faster into a leaking tire. I can say from experience the satisfaction from such striving is fleeting at best and hollow at worst. Yet sadly, it still doesn't render me immune from further such striving from time to time. The flesh dies hard.

Yet, I can honestly say since the age of 2o I have known why I am here. I have never had to resort to popping a pill for peace of mind. God has placed me here in large part to help relieve the suffering of others. And I've been "privileged" to suffer a bit myself ... a severely arthritic right knee, a virtual amputation and crushing injury to my left foot and ankle, a right shoulder so damaged by years of throwing that surgery was able only to take the edge off the pain accompanying overhead activities such as lifting and, yes, throwing. Lastly, two years ago I faced my own potential mortality when the bottom fell out on my health with a paralyzed left eye [the differential diagnosis of which included brain cancer, stroke, multiple sclerosis, etc.] with resulting double vision, daily hammerknocker migraine headaches, an out of control blood pressure and a thyroid gland that mysteriously just "disappeared" over the course of four weeks. Still to this day, there has been no medical explanation for this sudden constellation of symptoms. I know many people who have suffered more and have experienced much more sorrow than I, and of course, I see the suffering of my patients on a daily basis. But I can at least relate to much of what they have experienced. You may recall a poem written by Robert Browning Hamilton that seems to sum up a lot of what I'm trying to say here:

I walked a mile with Pleasure;

She chatted all the way;

But left me none the wiser

For all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow,

And ne'er a word said she;

But, oh! The things I learned from her,

When Sorrow walked with me.

Yet society tells us the things we must do and what we must acquire to be happy -- a new boat, a bigger house, a better job, a beach, lake or mountain home. I know the falsity of this. I have counseled many people who have all these things, and I can tell you they are not happy because of them. I've seen too many marriages that have disintegrated when they had all the stuff in the world ... families who have fought and argued all the time despite the fact that they had both money and health. Having more does not keep us from wanting more. And if we always want more -- to be richer, more beautiful, more well known -- we miss the bigger picture, and I can tell you from experience that happiness will never come.

Remember that when a baby comes into the world, his hands are clenched into a fist. Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say in a way, "The whole world is mine." Yet when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned the lesson. You can't take it with you. So there it is ... the secret to happiness. Be satisfied. Be grateful. For what you have. For the love and grace you have received. For what God has given to you.

Paul said in Philippians 4:11 that he "had learned to be content whatever the circumstances" and in 1 Timothy 6 that "if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. [For] people who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

On Growing Old

In less than two months I'll "celebrate" [???] another one of those birthdays that end with a zero. You know the ones we all seem to dread the most. So over the past few months I've been contemplating just what it means to "grow old." It doesn't help much that one of the men I most admire, Kent Hamilton, a fellow elder in my church just turned 60 in February. He has been "going there" as well. And, heck, at least I'm not yet turning 60!

Getting old we can deal with ... it's more the being old that is the problem! My father turned 80 in January. This is a bit of a miracle in itself, because I never thought he'd live that long for as much as he smoked beginning even in his preadolescent years and continuing until a year ago. Nevermind that he's already suffered at least two prior strokes. As an aside, why is it that both sides of my family seem to only have strokes??? That is certainly not the way I want to exit this world ... unless it is just one massive stroke and I'm gone. But my father is now a shell of the tall, strapping man he once was. Despite the fact that his mind is still very sharp, in many ways he's a shadow of his former self ... stooped over, hard of hearing, and much more frail than I could ever remember. It grieved me to see him this way at our last Currieo family reunion this past June, just how much he'd lost even over the preceding year. Anyway, I now know that his time could be anytime. And after that, I'm next. A simple but yet frightening thought. What do you do when death's natural pecking order puts you at the front of the line? When you can no longer hide behind, "It's not my turn?"

What do people fear most about death? Hmmm. Well, for one thing, it's what happens next? Where do we go? Is it what we imagined? Does anything actually happen at all? Or is it just over and we no longer exist? Of course, if you know me, you know I don't believe that. But our next biggest fear I think, is being forgotten.

Rabbi Albert Lewis called this "the second death." Of course, we all know "the second death" to be eternal death and greatly to be feared. But this "second death" is also a painful thing to ponder. How often do you ever see someone go to a cemetery and decorate a grave? When I was a child, people did this on Memorial Day but now no one even seems to bother any longer. When was the last time I visited the grave of my own mother? Not since my college/medical school days. For shame!

I recall a poem by Thomas Hardy that speaks of a man walking among tombstones, conversing with the dead below. The recently buried souls lamented the older souls that had already slid from memory:

They count as quite forgot

They are as men who have existed not,

Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath

It is the second death.

The second death ... The unvisited in nursing homes. The homeless found frozen in alleys. Who mourned their passing? Who marked their time on earth? To think that you died and no one would remember you. I wonder if this is why so many try so very hard to make their mark in America? To be known. Think of how important celebrity has become in our culture. We sing to become famous, expose our worst secrets to become famous, lose weight, eat bugs, even commit murder to become famous. Our young people post their deepest thoughts on public Web sites like this and Facebook. They run cameras from their bedrooms. It's as if we are screaming, Notice me! Remember me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are all but forgotten.

Is there a way to avoid this "second death?" In the short run, perhaps yes, simply via one's family. We can hope to live on for a few generations ... when they remember us, we live on. When they speak of us, we live on. All the memories we have made, all the laughter, all the tears. But even that, too, is limited. If we do a good job, we may be remembered for one generation or perhaps two. But eventually they are going to say, "What was his name again?" How many generations, even in especially close-knit families, does it take for this fabric to unravel???

This is one more reason why faith is so important. It is a rope for all of us grab, up and down the mountain. I may not be remembered in so many years. But what I believe and have taught and shared about Christ, about the foundations of our faith -- that can go on. It comes from our parents and their parents before them. And it stretches to my children and hopefully to their children after them. Then we are all connected. And we have hope to all be reunited on the other side.

Ashley & Matt arrived here last night and we all went to Jordano's to share a pizza that I call the Delight ... most just know it as the Deluxe. Today Ariel and Alli will arrive, and we'll make more family memories as we have done so many countless times before. But it dawned on me yesterday that this is precisely how a legacy is built. One memory at a time. My kids are almost all grown now. My oldest is a nurse. My number two graduates from college in four weeks and soon will begin her career as a missionary teacher in Venezuela. My number three is just two semesters away from entering nursing school herself. My baby is about to finish ninth grade. We'll likely take our annual Christmas picture on the beach tomorrow. I hope to look at that picture and say, "Steve, you've done okay." This in many ways is my immortality.

It All Goes Back in the Box

This is excerpted from the "Ideal" speech [or Rollo if you will] that I gave at a Tres Dias weekend in 2002. The thought is good I think ... even if some of the illustrations might be a bit "dated."

Does anyone here but me seem to notice that the pace of life seems to be accelerating...that what it takes to keep all the plates spinning in our lives is constantly moving faster and faster? Citicorp became the number one lender in America when it cut in half the number of days it took to let people know whether or not their loan got approved. Domino’s Pizza became the number one seller of pizza in the U.S. because they guaranteed that they would deliver your pizza within 30 minutes. The CEO of Domino’s said, “We don’t sell pizza, we sell delivery.” And if you have ever tasted a Domino’s Pizza...you know what it is that he is talking about. There was an article in the newspaper I recall a few years ago about a guy who drives for Domino’s and he said that when he is in his car driving for Domino’s and puts that sign on his roof, he will go down the road and cars will actually pull off to the side of the road to let him through...like we used to do for ambulances. We don’t yield to ambulances anymore. We yield to pizza delivery drivers...because we are a people in a hurry.

About five years ago, USA Today had an article about a hospital in Detroit who must be taking a cue from Domino’s Pizza. A Detroit hospital guarantees that emergency patients will be seen within 20 minutes or the treatment is free. So far Doctor’s Hospital has delivered; since the offer was first made, business has been up 30%. Mortality rates have been up 120%...you know, win a few, lose a few; get ‘em in, get ‘em out.

People have fax machines; ATMs are proliferating; no one would think of living in a house without a microwave oven. Pert Plus became the number one seller of shampoo...you know why? Shampoo and conditioner in the same bottle. Remember all those years when you had to shampoo and then rinse, then condition and then rinse...and now it is just all in one bottle. “Wash and go” is their slogan...number one.

In 1967, expert testimony was given to the U.S. Senate and it was said that the labor and time saving technology was going to change the way that Americans work...that within 20 years, people would be working only 32 weeks per year or 22 hours per week or that they would retire at about the age of 40...we’d be saving all this time due to our technology. They said that within 20 years the number one challenge that Americans would face with regards to time would be what to do with all the excess time. Now it is 35 years later and let me ask you, is that really your number one challenge when it comes to time...what to do with all the excess?

About the same time, a new kind of restaurant became very popular and the American culture...a restaurant that for the first time sold food not on the basis of quality, not even on the basis of price, but on the basis of the speed with which it is served. And we coined a phrase for that type of restaurant, we called it “fast food." Fast food; not good food; not even cheap food; just fast food. But with fast food restaurants you still had to park the car, get out of the car, walk all the way inside, order the food, sit down someplace and then throw away all the stuff. And all that took time. So we invented drive thru windows, so that families could eat in vans as God intended them to.

Now even gas stations have a new deal where you can just pay at the pump. You don’t have to walk all the way into the office at the gas station and all that way back...save a good 11 or 12 seconds each way...just pay at the pump. And their slogan is...they have slogans at these gas stations...” we help you move faster.” We live in a world in which we will pay anybody who can help us move faster.

If you look at the life of Jesus, you will see a person who was never hurried. He was often busy. He had many things to do. But as he went through life he did things in such a way, he arranged his life in such a way that he was always in every moment available to His Father; able to led by the Spirit. And he was always able to love the people that came into His life. He was never hurried.

One of life’s greatest illusions challenge us here. It is contained in this little phrase, “when things settle down.” The illusion is that someday life will slow down and there will be time to get around to the things that are important. The reality is that “things are not going to settle down.” So if we don’t want to end up being so busy building up our little kingdoms that we have no time for the kingdom of God; so busy making a living that we have no time to make a life...we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. Instead, invest your time in the kingdom in your family, in your kids, in their school making it better...making it all God wants it to be.

Now do things ever get better, slower, more peaceful at Christmastime? Malls are crowded; airports are busy; traffic gets worse…all those things. And it seems to come earlier and earlier with each passing year. Sears had their Christmas stuff up on October 30 last year! October 30! These are sick people. If anything, around Christmastime it gets worse…you can tell it by the music we listen to. 150 years ago what kind of music did people like for Christmas? Silent Night…all is calm…sleep in heavenly peace. Now we like songs like Jingle Bell Rock and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. Evidently the reindeer were in a big hurry like the Dominos guys. You know they gotta get all the way around the world in just one night.

Really what all these examples are about is a disease that completely ubiquitous in our society, one that might be called “Hurry Sickness”. If you have this syndrome, when you come to a stoplight with two lanes to choose from and a single car is in each, you find yourself calculating…you try to assess how recent the car models are, how much horsepower each of them have under the hood, who’s going to pull away the fastest. And that’s the one you pull up behind.

When you go grocery shopping and it’s time to checkout, you find yourself counting how many people are in each line, how full their carts are, etc. Now if you are really sick, you keep track of who would have been you in the lines next to you and you kind of watch as you go through the lines together. Which one is going to get through faster…and you may even mentally pressure the people ahead of you. If the person who would have been you in the line next to you gets through first and is out the door while you are still standing there in line, you go away kind of depressed. I mean, YOU LOST! People like that are “polyphasic”…they have to be doing more than one thing at a time…I know, I suffer from it too. But God wants us to be still and know that He is God. He also wants us to spend quality time cultivating life-changing relationships with members of our eternal family.

I learned to play Monopoly from my grandmother. She was the most ruthless Monopoly player I had ever known in my life. Imagine, if you will, that Donald Trump had married Leona Helmsley and they had had a child. You get some picture of what my grandmother was like when she played Monopoly. She understood the name of the game was acquisition. When I would get my initial money from the bank, I would just try to hold on to it because I didn’t want to lose any of it. She, however, spent everything, bought the properties she landed on as soon as she could and mortgaged it to buy more properties. And eventually, of course, the way the game goes, she would accumulate everything. She would become the “Master of the Board.” She understood that money was how you kept score in that game and that possessions are a matter of survival. And she beat me every time. And at the end of the game, she would look at me and say, “One day you’ll learn how to play the game.” She was kind of cocky, my grandmother, “one day you’ll learn how to play the game."

A year or two later, when I was about twelve, I played every day with a kid who lived on my block. And it dawned on me, as I played every day all through that summer, that the only way to beat someone at Monopoly was to make a total commitment to acquisition. That summer I learned how to play the game. By the time fall rolled around I was far more ruthless than even my grandmother. Then I went to play her. And I was willing to do anything to win. I was even willing to bend the rules. I played with sweaty palms. Slowly, cunningly, I exposed the soft underbelly of my grandmother’s weakness. Relentlessly, inexorably, I drove her off the board. The game does strange things to you. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. It happened at Marvin Gardens. I looked at my grandmother. This is the person who had taught me how to play...and she was an old woman by now... she had raised my mother...she loved me. And I took everything she had. I destroyed her financially and psychologically. I watched her surrender her last dollar and quit in utter defeat. It was the greatest moment of my life. And then she had one more thing to teach me, my grandmother. Then she said to me, “now it all goes back in the box.”

All of the houses and hotels, Boardwalk and Park Place, all of those railroads and utilities, all of that wonderful money, it all goes back in the box, she said. I didn’t want it to go back in the box. I wanted to leave the board out...permanently...bronze it maybe as a memorial to what I had achieved. See when she said it all goes back in the box, it was a way of saying to me, none of this is really yours. It doesn’t belong to you. You don’t own any of it. You just used it for a little while and now it all goes back in the box, and next time, it will all go to someone else. That’s the way the game works...so when you play the game, don’t forget this one lesson...when the game comes to an end, and the game always comes to an end, the stuff all goes back in the box.

We tend to try to become the master of our own little boards and often forget this one little thing, that the game will end. The game always ends folks. Sooner or later, it all goes back in the box. A businessman is jogging and he feels a sudden pain in his chest, and in an instant, it all goes back in the box. A mother is driving in her car and someone misses a stop sign, and in an instant, it all goes back in the box. The doctor says it’s malignant, and in a hospital bed in an instant, it all goes back in the box. House, car, boat, clothes, toys, they all go back in the box. So you have to ask yourself, Jesus says, “What is it in life that matters? What is it that is worth giving your life to?” This story gets lived out across the world millions of times every day, and in the end, it is only what you’ve done for the kingdom of God that counts for anything in this life and in the life to come.

Two great illusions prop up the lives of rich folks like this guy and like a lot of us. One of them is contained in this little phrase, “when things settle down.” The illusion is that some day life will slow down and there will be time to get around to the things that are important. Listen friends, do you know when things will settle down? When you die. Things will settle way down when they put you into the ground. But until that day comes, it is not likely that things are going to change in your life so that all kinds of time will become available for you to get around to important things. The second illusion that props up rich young lives is that someday more is going to be enough. This guy kept thinking that if I just get more…bigger barns, bulging portfolios, etc. The Bible says that contentment is a learned skill. It’s an attitude. It’s not that eventually I am going to have enough stuff so that I will become content. I must learn to be content with what I am living with right now.

I remember a Peanuts cartoon that showed Snoopy sulking on his doghouse eating dog food on Thanksgiving Day while Charlie Brown and his family were warm inside eating a turkey dinner. Then he remembered that it could be worse, he could have been the turkey. It could be worse. It could always be worse.

So when Tres Dias is over and you go out into the parking lot and see your car and that fancy Lexus across the lot…you’re going to say with passion, “It could be worse.” When you get home to where you live and you walk up to the door, you’re not going to wish you lived in a fancier house, but you’re going to say with passion, “It could be worse.” Lastly, and more importantly, when you wake up Monday morning, roll over and look at your wife, you’re going to say with passion, “….” NO, NO, NO, don’t do that after all!