Wednesday, October 12, 2005
DEATH
Chris Schenkel's voice is still alive in my head. He recently died at age 82, but for 33 years he was the voice of the Pro Bowlers Tour as well as other sports events. When I was an early teen (pre-driver’s license) there would be Saturday afternoons I was stuck at home and would watch bowling. Schenkel’s baritone voice, whispered as a bowler approached the lane, still rings in my mind as if I heard him yesterday.
I am intrigued by death.
It is the ending of a life that had such impact. Life ends and yet doesn't fully end. Lives live on.
Sometimes when I watch I Love Lucy it seems so odd to realize I am caused to laugh by a cast of characters who are all dead. They are dead and yet I am watching them as if they are alive – somewhat of an existential time warp.
We experience a similar phenomenon in the case of our grandparents and parents. Even without technology, they live in our heads and hearts. We hear them. We feel things. We may even sound like them in saying a certain phrase.
Lives have IMPACT.
Yet, when I am gone and when my generation is gone—or maybe it’s after two or three more generations are gone—all the above impact of the lives mentioned will also be gone. There are very, very, very few exceptions.
What intrigues me about death is the wonder it is that a complex, multi-faceted being could exist, have impact, live on in the lives of others a while, and then cease. Totally cease. For it to finally become as if they had never existed. That will be true eventually even of Hitler and Lincoln.
Jesus lived and died and continues to live. After 2000 years. There is something about him that will not cease, but is eternal. This truth is a corollary to the fact he is divine. That “something” is God. It is indestructible. His impact is eternal and infinite.
When he impacts my life and my life joins his and becomes part of his body/community/people/ultimate reality, I become part of something eternal. I become eternal. I have eternal life in Christ - with God.
My life comes to mean more than calling bowling tournaments, making people laugh, freeing people or even unleashing a Reich that will be vilified for a thousand years. And my impact on the lives of other can be eternal! Let that one sink in.
There is something about the impact lives have that points to transcendent possibility. But that possibility is only realized by connecting with God himself.
I am intrigued by death.
It is the ending of a life that had such impact. Life ends and yet doesn't fully end. Lives live on.
Sometimes when I watch I Love Lucy it seems so odd to realize I am caused to laugh by a cast of characters who are all dead. They are dead and yet I am watching them as if they are alive – somewhat of an existential time warp.
We experience a similar phenomenon in the case of our grandparents and parents. Even without technology, they live in our heads and hearts. We hear them. We feel things. We may even sound like them in saying a certain phrase.
Lives have IMPACT.
Yet, when I am gone and when my generation is gone—or maybe it’s after two or three more generations are gone—all the above impact of the lives mentioned will also be gone. There are very, very, very few exceptions.
What intrigues me about death is the wonder it is that a complex, multi-faceted being could exist, have impact, live on in the lives of others a while, and then cease. Totally cease. For it to finally become as if they had never existed. That will be true eventually even of Hitler and Lincoln.
Jesus lived and died and continues to live. After 2000 years. There is something about him that will not cease, but is eternal. This truth is a corollary to the fact he is divine. That “something” is God. It is indestructible. His impact is eternal and infinite.
When he impacts my life and my life joins his and becomes part of his body/community/people/ultimate reality, I become part of something eternal. I become eternal. I have eternal life in Christ - with God.
My life comes to mean more than calling bowling tournaments, making people laugh, freeing people or even unleashing a Reich that will be vilified for a thousand years. And my impact on the lives of other can be eternal! Let that one sink in.
There is something about the impact lives have that points to transcendent possibility. But that possibility is only realized by connecting with God himself.
