Dying and Living

Those who love their life lose it,

and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:25

Dear Friends,

It seems to be a season of death.

We just finished our celebration of Holy Week and fresh on my mind is Jesus’ journey through the last supper, his betrayal, arrest, suffering and death. Then, like most of you, on Monday I heard about the death of Pope Francis. I respected him as a man of faith who worked to make the Roman Catholic Church more inclusive and more focused on those on the margins and edges of society.

When someone dies and their time on earth is ended, there is a real finality to it. It is easy for it to scare us.

There is a different perspective that theologians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Fr. Richard Rohr talk about. They talk about the Big Death and the Little Death. Surprisingly, the death of Jesus on Good Friday and the death of Pope Francis on Monday they would call the Little Deaths. The Big Death is when one let’s go of having their lives be all about themselves. You might call it the death of the “ego” or at least the end of the ego calling the shots of one’s life. The Big Death happens when one chooses to put Christ on the throne of one’s life instead of oneself.

When Jesus went through the temptations and chose to serve God and not his own ego or bodily desires, he died the Big Death (if not before). By the humility, love, servanthood and graciousness that Pope Francis demonstrated, it is clear that he had died the Big Death long ago… probably when he took his vows as a priest and devoted his life to serving Christ.

When one dies the Big Death, then real life, abundant life becomes available. The invitation of Jesus is to live a life of loving others. This means shifting one’s focus from being only on oneself to focusing and caring about others.  This is the access to the abundant life.

If the “dying to oneself” is the Big Death, what is the Little Death? The Little Death is when our time on earth is ended. The Little Death is when our bodies fail us and we fall into the arms of our Lord. Though our bodies stop living, the love we lived out and expressed continues on.

Pope Francis has died his Little Death. He, along with us, knows that Jesus died his “little death” (painful though it was) and was resurrected so we might see that it was indeed “little.”

We celebrate the life Pope Francis lived after his Big Death.

We celebrate the life Jesus lived after his Big Death.

May we claim the life that comes with dying.

Peace,

Pastor Phil