The Christian's Witness through death. “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Paul from Romans 14:8
“If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”1
I recently heard a story about an elder in a remote tribe that had converted to the Christian faith years before. Knowing he was nearing death at 103 years old, the elder gathered the young people around him to recount the story of how their tribe came to know and believe the gospel years before.
As to be expected, the tribe first thought the message of the missionaries was not only weird, but unsubstantiated. With normal reason the tribe was skeptical. To test whether the missionaries’ claim of hope and faith in the person of Jesus was true the tribe secretly started to poison some of the Christians with various toxins placed into their food and drink. One by one, mysteriously, some of the missionaries and even their children began to die slow deaths.
The tribe’s macabre aim was to watch them die; To witness firsthand how these people with a divine message navigated sickness and death was to authenticate the validity of the missionaries’ faith and subsequently, the substance of it. After twelve years of poisoning, the tribe slowly came to see and believe that the faith and hope of the evangelists was indeed real.
And it was in the tribe’s contemplative gaze at temporal death that they actually saw glimpses of eternal life.
While it is undoubtedly mysterious it shouldn’t be surprising that both life and death are always working in tandem. If the seed doesn’t first die in the ground it will not produce life.2 It is much easier on the mind to forget that death and dying are just as much a part of the Christian message as life and living. One cannot be had without the other. There is no resurrection without crucifixion. It is mistakenly commonplace to relegate this axiom to the spiritual realm and that of the future Kingdom but by contrast it’s hard to rightly accept this truth in the here and now of everyday life; in the fragility of our bodies and minds.
It wasn’t just sometimes that Paul said we “carry around in our body the death of Jesus,” it was “Always”. Of course this was in order that the life of Jesus would likewise always be revealed in their bodies. 3 Paul again mentions his very personal struggle between life and death when he said, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” 4
Like the Apostle Paul, the poisoned missionaries were also called to martyrdom. While physically dying for the sake of the gospel is a summon not giving to all Christians, the calling to die to one’s self or inner desires, biblically defined as the “flesh”, undoubtedly is. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer intimately knew both forms said, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” 5 And although I have often considered my hypothetical response when challenged to physically die for Jesus’ cause as a resounding “yes”, the reality of my response when challenged everyday to deny my flesh, is something much less; a stubborn “no” at worst and a reluctant “yes” at best.
In some degree, by nature we are all dying. No matter our age, or health we are all growing older and whether early, late, natural or unnatural, nearing a certain death. The Christian, even more so as they should be dying on two fronts. In this lies great testimony to Jesus’ promise that all who believe in Him, even though they may die will have eternal life. 6 May God’s life be magnified in us as it was in the Apostle Paul when he courageously claimed “Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” 7
We tend to think, the world is always watching us live, but in truth they just might as well be watching us die.
1. Romans 14:8
2. John 12:24, 1 Corinthians 15:36
3. 2 Corinthians 4:10
4. 2 Corinthians 4:16
5. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
6. John 11:25
7. Philippians 1:20