What does death say about life?

Recently, Paul Zahl said:  "What does it say about life that it ends in death?'

I've been pondering this statement daily since.

If we go back to the Garden of Eden, we see that God cursed the soil (work), and He cursed childbirth (children).  As I've previously written, God did this because:  a)men will put their work before God and family;  and b)women will put their children before God and family.  So, the curses are designed to keep us putting God first, but they are still curses.

This means that life on earth is cursed.  It may have been gracious for God to curse life on earth, given our idolatrous hearts, but it's still cursed.  Life, in other words, is not the best.

The fact that life ends in death confirms this.  If there is a God who cares about us, He wouldn't leave us in a perpetually cursed world.  In fact, the flaming swords at the Garden of Eden were put there so that man couldn't sneak back in, eat of the Tree of Life, and live forever in this cursed world.

So, I think the fact that life ends in death confirms that there is an afterlife--at least if God is merciful.  In PZ's latest book, he describes the one word that a "floater" (someone hovering on the ceiling of his hospital room over his dying body) needs to believe about God--mercy.

If God is merciful, then we can expect that He has prepared something better for us.  Indeed, Jesus confirmed this.  "In my father's house, there are many rooms.  I go there to prepare a place for you."

So, why life?  Perhaps it is because we can't understand mercy without having experienced non-mercy.  This morning, Tullian wrote that: "at age 25, I thought that I could change the world.  At age 42, I know that I can't change my wife, my kids, my church, and certainly not the world."  This turned Tullian more and more to God's grace.  This turns me more and more to God's grace.

The afterlife is going to be that much greater, because we have lived in this world.  Yet, we are not to reject this world.  If Jesus came into this world, and lived amongst us (exhibiting love to all),  who are we to think that we shouldn't embrace this world and live out lives of love towards our fellow man?

The Kingdom, which Jesus discussed over and over, is already, but not yet.  It has broken through into this world, but not fully.  The best is yet to come.

Walter White, the Work of Men, and God's Strange Love

I watched the last three episodes of Breaking Bad again and saw yet more of the profundity of the show.  For four seasons and 15 episodes, Walt said that he did it all "for his family."  In the last episode, he sees Skylar for the last time, and he's giving his parting words.  She says: "Don't tell me that..." (obviously going to say--don't tell me that you did it for all our family).  Walt surprises her and all of us with his truthfulness:  "I did it for me.  I enjoyed it.  I was really good at it."  Earlier in the episode, Walt recalls a birthday celebration before it all began when Hank said: "Walt, get a little excitement in your life.  Come with me when we bust a Meth lab."  Of course, it was due to Walt's ride-along on such a bust that he met Jesse, and so began his life of crime.  Walt delved further and further into the criminal world--all the while telling himself that he was doing it for his family.

How blind we all are--in so many areas of our lives.  For men, it's often a blindness to the role that work plays in our lives.  We define ourselves through work.  If we're successful in work, we have a meaningful identity.  We become Heisenbergs.  Yet, we tell ourselves that we're chiefly working to provide for our families.  As we grow older and look back upon our lives, we realize that the work often superseded the real needs of our families--to have a present, kind, loving father--such as Walter started out.  If we're fortunate, God reveals this blindness to us while we can still change.

Over the years, my view of God's grace has grown and grown and grown.  Now, when I read the Old Testament, I read it as one acquainted with Christ and His strange love.  He loved not the good, but the bad; not the strong, but the weak; not the successful, but the failures;  not the well, but the sick;  not the upright church-go'ers, but the Jimmy Hale Mission-go'ers.  Indeed He loves all, but the good, strong, successful, well, and upright people can't recognize His love until they first realize that they are sinners.  That's why Jesus upbraids the Pharisees time, and time, and time again.

As displayed in WW, one of man's chief sins is to place work above everything else.  And, all the while, we delude ourselves into thinking we're doing it for our families.  So, in order for man to recognize the idolatry inherent in placing work number one, as told in Genesis, God placed "thorns and thistles" in the earth that man was tilling.  This is almost always spoken of as a curse--as a bad thing.  In fact, it's the opposite.  Eventually the thorns and thistles in our work--whether it's being passed over for a job promotion, having a difficult boss, representing ungrateful people, or the milieu of other negative repercussions of work--cause us to realize that work is not the "be all and end all."  It is not how we are to define ourselves.  Work is meant for us to enjoy, for us to provide for our families, but not for us to worship.

With Walter White, it took the complete devastation of his criminal enterprise, of all of his work, for him to come to this realization.  By God's grace, may we be less blind than WW.

By the way, in a recent interview, Bryan Cranston intimated that there might be more BB.  Let's hope so!