A Christmas Meditation: Dying for the Best Christmas Yet

I don’t want to create an awkward moment here, but I’d like us to reflect a moment on death…more importantly, your death.

A quotation I read this morning got me thinking along these lines…  

“It is no mark of courage to speak lightly of dying.  There is a world of untold sensations crowded into that moment when a man puts his hand to his forehead and feels the damp upon it which tells him his hour is come.  He had been looking for death all his life, and now it is come; it is all over: his chance is past, and his eternity is settled.  It is a mockery to speak lightly of that which we cannot know till it comes.”  _Frederick W. Robertson

To know more about F.W. Robertson click here

Just this morning, as I reflected Robertson’s quotation and my own death, it occurred to me that, at best, Sonja and I only have a limited number of Christmases left.  Just that thought, the thought of my sure and impending death, brought the preciousness and importance of Christmas into vivid focus. 

Like a cold shower, it invigorated me and made me aware, and made me more determined than ever to make this Christmas count like never before.

I’m convinced we do think of death enough, and especially our own death.  As a result, we lose the sharpness and vitality of living. 

By ignoring the reality of our impending death, we end up ignoring the very thing that best motivates us to live well.  The result is that the temporal and trivial consume our lives and the truly important gets pushes aside until one day…

…the knock comes and someone announces that Death has come to make his appointment, and suddenly, like a bucket of ice water poured over us, what’s important comes into painful and vivid focus and we find ourselves scrambling, trying to hurriedly say the things we meant to say and do the things we meant to do.   

If only we’d lived our lives getting ready for that knock, our living would have been so much.   

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The ONE THING for today: Ironically, keeping the reality of our pending death before us is fuel for living better.  Dear friend, seize the day and seize the season and make this the best Christmas ever.  Lord knows, after a year like this year, we all need it.