"Living a Christian life is not a spectator sport."
Several generations ago, during one of the most turbulent of the desert wars in the Middle East, a spy was captured and sentenced to death by a general of the Persian army. The general, a man of intelligence and compassion, had adopted a strange and unusual custom in such cases. He permitted the condemned person to make a choice. The prisoner could either face the firing squad or pass through the Black Door.
As the moment of the execution drew near, the general ordered the spy to be brought before him for a short, final interview, the primary purpose of which was to receive the answer of the doomed man to the query: "What shall it be--the firing squad or the Black Door?"
This was not an easy decision and the prisoner hesitated, but soon made it known that he much preferred the firing squad to the unknown horrors that might await him behind the ominous and mysterious door. Not long thereafter, a volley of shots in the courtyard announced that the grim sentence had been fulfilled.
The general, staring at his boots, turned to his aide and said, "You see how it is with men; they will always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet I gave him his choice."
"What lies beyond the Black Door?" asked the aide.
"Freedom," replied the general, "and I've known only a few brave enough to take it."
This story points out rather dramatically that choosing life is not always as easy as it sounds. I think Moses knew this when he stood up before the gathered tribes of Israel and made his dramatic (and final) speech to them the night before they were to cross over the Jordan River and enter the unknown world called The Promised Land. He said to them:
"Set before you on this day a choice--life and death
and you must choose one." (Deut. 30)
I believe every one of us must make this choice daily--the choice to live in this world rather than die to it. It's not just a physical choice--more often it's an emotional choice, and above all, a spiritual one. This morning I want to share with you some of what I have learned about choosing life over death.
Choosing life has to do with living life with commitment and dedication. The Apostle Paul often used athletic images when he wrote in his Epistles about how we are to live life in the world as a Christian. He used words like running the race, fighting the good fight and learning endurance. I think this sense of perseverance in the face of life is why the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone were so popular. You remember in Rocky 1, Apollo Creed, the current world heavyweight champ, needed a chump to fight him. So his managers chose a little-known fighter named Rocky, knowing he didn't have a chance. They scheduled a knockout in the second round, but Rocky mad a choice early on to stay in the fight for the full fifteen rounds. As he put it, it didn't matter whether he won or lost. He simply wanted to "go the distance" with the champ. And to everyone's absolute amazement, he did just that. Rocky lost the fight, but became the real champ in everyone's heart.
Living a Christian life is not a spectator sport. Our call as Christians is to take our place amongst the participants and choose to live, to go the distance, to fight the good fight and to endure, regardless of life's circumstances.
Choosing life has to do with accepting the fact of death in order to get on with living. In one of the recent TV episodes of The Golden Girls, Rose's mother comes to visit the household. Rose is so overly-protective of her mother, treating her more like a helpless child than an adult, that finally her mother goes to her room and packs her suitcase to return home. In making her apology and explaining why she's been so overly-protective, Rose says to her mother, "Mom, Daddy died and then my husband died. Now I'm afraid you'll die, too. I was just trying to protect you and keep you safe so you won't die on me." Her mother thought for a moment and then said, "Rose, you can't stop my dying by stopping my living."
I think this is a part of what Jesus means when he speaks so often in the Gospels about the need to die in order to live, or renouncing all that we have to be disciples, or counting the cost of doing things in life before we act. Sometimes in our lives we have to let go of that awful fear that death holds over us.
I know that one of the great turning points in my life came when I was sick enough to think that I might die. Facing that death and then getting on with my life released much of my fear of the unknown future and it freed me to live in a way that I could begin to choose a new life which eventually led me into this ministry.
Facing death forces us to face life and gives us the courage to choose to enter the unknown.
Norman Vincent Peale writes about facing death in order to live in his book, Have a Great Day. He describes terrible winter storms on the great American plains and how cattle react differently. Some turn their backs to the maelstrom and drift downward until they come to a fence barring their way. They pile up against the fence and many of them die. Other cattle face into the wind, standing shoulder to shoulder as they face the storm, and most of them are found alive and well. "And that's the greatest lesson I learned," said Peale, "to face into storms of life and not turn and run from them."
Choosing life has to do with letting God become a part of it. The great and wonderful good news is that we do not have to choose to live alone. Moses knew this when he spoke to his gathered people, for along with demanding that they choose life, his last words to them were these:
"Be strong and of good courage. Do not fear or be in dread...
For the Lord your God goes with you; he will not fail you or forsake you." (Deut. 31:6)
As Christians we let God into our lives by accepting Jesus Christ into our hearts, as friend and counselor, as Savior and Redeemer. He is the line which transmits God's grace and love; he is, as one theologian says so well, the knot which binds heaven and earth into one. He will not fail you or forsake you.
I close with a story which most of us have probably heard, yet it seems most appropriate at this point. An unknown woman writes:
"One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there were only one.
"This bothered me. Because I noted that during the low periods in my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, 'You promised me, Lord, that if I followed You, You would walk with me always, but I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed You most, have You not been there for me?'
"The Lord replied, 'The times when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.'"
We are not called to have great faith in God, but faith in a great God! Amen.
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