It is useless to decide WHAT you are going to do, before you decide WHO you are going to be. Because no matter what happens, or who you try to surround yourself with, ultimately, it is Who you are that determines whether or not your gifts and talents and potential and friends and lovers become aspects of your life that bring more life or bring more death. So who are you? Who are you now? Who do you want to become? I urge you strongly to think about something that will change your existence fundamentally forever: at the end of your (hopefully) many years, when all the time that God has given you to walk around in your meat suit has run out, what are the things that you want the people who actually knew you to say about you? Will they say, wow, what a great athlete he was when he was younger? Or wow, did you know that he had a really nice computer? Or, she could tell you all of the boyfriends that Carrie had on Sex and the City? Or, holy cow, doesn't it make you jealous that her hair looked so good when she was 40? Or, Gee, what great amounts of money and time they had, but didn't give it?
Or... perhaps... do you want them to say something like this: "here lies a person that wrote their own eulogy over the last 80 years. I say that because as I stand here today, and they do not, and I am charged with the task of speaking for them, I have, in this opportunity very little work involved. I didn't have to fight, and strain to come up with meaningful things to mention to you today. Because this great and precious individual is a person who has been an explosive influence on the world around them. Our lives, through ways grand and subtle have been inextricably altered by the intense force of good that this person was in their time here. This was a person who made other people better. There is more than one of you here today because you were hungry, and he/she fed you when no one else would. There is more than one of you here today because you were lost in life, unable to get anything working right, lonely, tired, broken, and bitter and dead in your sufferings and misery, until one day, our beloved friend here came into your life, loved you first without questioning why one should, accepted you just as you were, and loved you too much to let you stay that way, so the intervention process began that day, and it never stopped. Never.
In fact if some of you were honest, you couldn't think of someone you'd rather be more like, who isn't Jesus. Because the kind of servant, leader, parent, friend, and worker that he/she was exemplified everything that was said about the sort of person a follower of Jesus should be. Now not all of you are a follower of Jesus, but even if you're not, you came to the realization that if followers were anything at all like our friend here, it would feel weird to think of a Christian in a negative light.
Because this person was honest. When push came to shove, when the reputation was in danger, when it cost something, when it made life harder or lonelier, the truth would always be what you would hear. Because of that, you knew that if it was coming from them, it was something reliably believed. You could trust him/her to be the first to tell you if a mistake was made, you never heard it through the grapevine. You could trust that you weren't being fed happy sounding lies to appease your ego, nor would the bad things you heard be blown out of proportion for the sake of being sensational or attention grabbing.
Yet there was this incredible Gentleness about whatever you heard from them. If you needed to hear something that you could never take from anyone else, our friend could tell you, because there was never any judgement, even when you needed correction there was never condemnation. You knew that you were hearing the difficult to hear truth from a person who loves you too much not to tell you about something that is sapping you of your strength and life, not that you were being gloated over and laughed about and looked down upon for the weaknesses or shortcomings you were faced with.
You knew that if you had a problem, that you could tell our friend and know for a fact that you would be listened to without pride or embarrassment getting in the way of honest progress in the deepening and strengthening of the relationship that has to result from humble address of grievances. As such there was really no good way to avoid being vulnerable with our friend, because to hide yourself from the sort of lovingkindness always exuded by the warm smiles and patient understanding that seemed to always be there in who this person was, was widely known to be an extremely foolish and unnecessary thing to do. Because everyone who let their guard down became a better version of who they were destined to be because of that one relationship.
From the example our loved one set, we have a roadmap that can lead us through things that come up against us to try and destroy us. It wasn't always an easy road for our loved one, there were times that there was no earthly reason for anything to get better. Times when all hope had seemed to fade. Times when the storm seemed too perfect. Times when the brave quake in fear, when the strong are powerless, the bright are dumbfounded and the valiant lose heart. But none of that ever happened. You see no matter the weapon formed against him/her, it never really prospered. Sure, there was pain, sure there was challenge, sure, there was reason to doubt and give up trying, but through all of these seemingly impossible circumstances you got to see something.. different. The reaction was never what could be considered normal. You would find, in spite of, in defiance of, the horrors of life that he/she went through that they still had joy. When there was no reason that one should be laughing, there was laughter. When nothing was peaceful, there was peace. Never did self deception and denial plague the shrewd and cunning mind that he/she was blessed with, nor a bitter root grow in the heart. Our friend was too reasonable and sober minded in discerning the facts for that kind of explanation to apply. No, full awareness of self and the world around never left, but where most would crumble, our precious loved one not only stood, but retained a confidence that was unshakeable even when the tears burned like flames down that face we remember so fondly. Even when the wounds became scars. Even when the love was not returned. Even when sorrows were the only meals eaten.
Now, in the sorrow we have today in the passing of our friend and ally, I know one thing that this person would ask of you, and it is our honor and duty to fulfill: in the stillness, humbly find yourself, and never let go of who Jesus says you are. Because a life lived out of the truth about who you really are in Christ is the fulfillment of yourself and of everyone around you for generations to come. Let your identity in Jesus guard you from the sicknesses of the way of this world and be transformed by the renewal of your mind in the peace that passes all understanding and the joy that is strength to stand. Let your life be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, rich in the abundant life that Jesus was willingly brutalized to provide you with. Live like you understand what it means to be loved by a Savior who literally went through hell just to be with you. Live like the meaningless things that so many people spend their whole lives scratching and clawing after cannot be worth a second of your precious time, because you were bought by the blood of the king to be sons and daughters of another family in a better place. A better country. One where the reality of that world makes the world around us that we see and taste and touch seem like a wisp of smoke by comparison.
Now our friend is there in that better country. More alive now than ever. More free. More peaceful. With that Jesus they couldn't stop talking about. So temper your grief with the truth that while we no longer get the benefit of seeing our friend on a day to day basis, there is the unmistakable and permanent presence of the wisdom and example of love as a legacy that was left with us that will not fade or decay. And know that nothing is really lost here. It's merely that we will have to be patient and wait for the day we get to laugh with him/her again when we go home. "
Or... something like that.
