Dying To Love

"While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthians 5:4-5 NLT)

Living in a multiracial, multireligious and multicultural society can be enriching when we learn to see God's truths that is revealed in the beliefs of others. The apostle Paul noted that the people of Athens were very religious as they had many shrines. He found an altar with the inscription, "To an Unknown God." And he used it as the platform to share the gospel:

"This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about. He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples, and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need." (Acts of the Apostles 17:22-25 NLT)

Today is Vesak Day, a day when the Buddhists commemorates the birth, enlightenment and attainment of nirvana of Siddharta Gautama Shakyamuni (Sakyamuni) Buddha. Siddharta Gautama was a Hindu prince who struggled to find the meaning of life in the face of the realities of sickness, aging and death. He discovered enlightenment in the Four Noble Truths - the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. 

The Buddhist way to end suffering is the Middle Path of Right Understanding; Right Intention; Right Speech; Right Action; Right Livelihood; Right Effort; Right Mindfulness; and Right Concentration. It is a way to freedom FROM suffering. But Jesus Christ came to show as the way of freedom THROUGH suffering and death. We need to taste death, to quote Martin Luther,  if we are to be born again:

"If we are to be born again, we must first die and be raised with the Son of God [on the cross]; I say die, i.e. taste death as though it were present.”

Two days before my 73rd birthday I had the experience of having a "living funeral" and a taste of death. It was the last day of my work with HCA Hospice care. I had been associated with the charity for the past 35 years - first as a volunteer and for the past 13 years as a part time staff. I was deeply touched by the collage produced by my co-workers documenting my journey in hospice care which they presented in an online farewell party for me.

And then on the next day, the Upper Room devotional written by a 73 year old lady, was a retirement and birthday message to me from God reminding me that I do not have to do great deeds to make a difference as God values small acts of service which may seem insignificant. I was further enlightened by Dan Moseley's description of the process of grieving loss from losing someone or something signficant as a spiritual pilgrimage. He made the point that to grow spiritually is about the way we process changes in our lives - we travel from death to life as we move from what is lost to what is yet to love:

"Spiritual growth is about living through a breaking, stretching, aching, remaking process of letting go of that which is gone and taking on a life formed in response of what is becoming."

The dying have been my teachers teaching me that what is most important is not a "good death" but a "fruitful death" for death is not the end but the beginning of another season of life. Death frees the living from the heavy burden of caring for the dying. Death is never good but it can sow the seed of a new life for the living.

Retiring from my work in hospice care has opened the door for me to embark more fully on the spiritual journey of contemplative prayer. It is a way of putting on new minds so that our dying bodies can be swallowed by life in the Spirit. We become more aware that we are more than our thoughts and to be more attentive to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit who fill our hearts with his love so that we can know how dearly God loves us. (Romans 5:5 NLT) And so I am reminded on this Vesak Day with the Covid 19 pandemic of our human suffering  and our need to die to self which Ernest Becker has described:

"The self must be destroyed, brought down to nothing, in order for self-transcendance to begin. Then the self can begin to relate itself to powers beyond itself. It has to thrash around in its finitude, it has to "die' in order to question that finitude, in order to see beyond it."

It is through contemplative prayer that we come to know the secret of godly contentment in life - that we are nothing without Christ and that we have everything when we are in Christ. As the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi:

"I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." Philippians 4:12‭-‬13 NLT

Contemplative prayer is not an easy path as it will lead us to face the harsh realities of life - that life is full of suffering because of sickness, poverty, old age and death. To face the truth that we suffer when we realise that we cannot keep what we want and we cannot avoid what we do not want. To face the truth that it is our wrong thinking that leads us to wrong actions and bad feelings which is the cause of our suffering. For this is the truth of our sinful nature that the apostle Paul has described:

"And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it." Romans 7:18-20 NLT

The good news is that we have the victory over sin in Christ when it is no longer we who lives but Christ who lives in us. (Galatians 2:20). Soren Kierkegaard believed that Christianity was not a doctrine to be taught but rather a life to be lived. In his view, many Christians who were relying totally on external proofs of God were missing out on the true Christian experience which is all about a personal and intimate relationship with God. Contemplative prayer offers us the way of dying to self that we may know what is true love - that God is love and we are God's beloved. May we experience the joy of knowing that we are the object of God's love through contemplative prayer:

"Now I am yours and You are mine,

Oh precious thought to me!

The priceless gift of love divine

Provides security.

The life I owe such mercy

Could never be enough.

But thank you, Lord, for making me

The object of Your love."