What's The Point?

I ran across an interesting story concerning the philosopher Mortimer Adler who happened to co-edit the fifty-five volume series for Encyclopedia Britannica  titled The Great Books of the Western World. (time for nostalgia, Bill - do you remember the enjoyment of paging thru; grabbing new insight and conjuring up mystical adventures of a world ourside your own when you were young? What about mom and dad putting a down payment on the set and payments, monthly so you and your sisters could further your knowledge?) Overseeing a staff of ninety, the editors created a diverse index of topics containing selections from many of the finest thinkers in the history of Western Civilization. Upon completion, Adler was asked why the work included more pages under the subject of God than any other topic. He replied matter-of-factly that it was because more consequences for life and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from any other basic question.

After puzzling on it, more than ever, I'm convinced that what I do with the subject of God is a far-reaching choice, defining my life, informing my death, shaping everything about me. Admittedly, I am speculating, but my observation is; that the person who lives as though there is no God lives quite differently than myself: living life in confidence that there is a God. I’m pondering that it is a subject of consequence because I see that it seems to reach everything and everyone; whether mindfully or indifferently, a decision is always made.

The Psalms helps me through the avenues of every one of my emotions, and over and over again making it clear to me the astounding claim that God not only exists, but that He is present and can be found if I but look. In victory and defeat, illness and poverty, health and prosperity, the psalmist maintains that it is God who gives all of my life meaning, that God alone answers the deepest and darkest questions of my life whether in the deepest depths or from the highest of heights.

I wonder: might it be the chaplain or pastoral side of me oozing out when I want to emphasize to every child and adult that the psalmist crosses every line of status and allegiance, pleading for care regarding a subject that concerns them. I believe the psalmist makes it clear in Psalm 49:4 that what is being communicated is of consequence. “Listen, all who live in this world, both low and high, rich and poor together… I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the harp.” I believe the riddle the psalmist desires to bring to my attention is a riddle forever before humankind. It is a riddle to which I must diligently attend, but too many times ignore. Fittingly, the Hebrew word for “riddle” has also been translated “dark saying” or “difficult question.”

The psalmist continues, “When we look at the wise, they die; fool and dolt perish together and leave their wealth to others. Their graves are their homes for ever, their dwelling-places to all generations, though they named lands their own. Mortals cannot abide in their pomp; they are like the animals that perish.”

Haven't I found it easy these past seventy three years, at various times, easy going, "doing life," as if I knew what I was doing? But the other day, walking with the psalmist, he stopped and turned to me, asking: "what is the point of it all?" Again, I ask myself: am I here to accumulate wealth, or remain in adequacy, to live well physically or in pain? Am I not destined for the grave. As we parted ways, he turned, waved and admitted that it is all a dark riddle. What is the point of it all?

I’ve noticed, as I’ve become more aware of myself and a plethora of relationships, that solving the riddles of life and death, like religion and politics at a social gathering, means, for most of my aquaintances, changing the subject. As Woody Allen once quipped, “It’s not that I am afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” But since turning another year older a few days ago, I realize that my life is fleeting and I'm experiencing an awakening to a sense of urgency, a sense of inquiry. That life is fleeting, though inarguably full of meaning, is indeed either a peculiar contradiction or a hint that creation is being made new, both now and in what is coming.

This is not to say that death, for me, is not a mystery. I know that death is the last great door through which I must walk. Yep, the mark of a broken world. Yet I know also that through death God has declared the end of that broken hold on my life, that the I lose my life I will save it, and that by Christ’s death the Spirit works Christ’s life in me even now. As C.S. Lewis once said of the Christian, “Of all men, we hope most of death; yet nothing will reconcile us to…its ‘unnaturalness.’ We know that we were not made for it; we know how it crept into our destiny as an intruder; and we know Who has defeated it.”

Father, God, thank You for helping me these days, especially after burring my last parent, and memorializing the lives of so many of my life-long friends and acquaintances.  So much of Your mysterious help and guidance has come thru the psalmist’s expounding on the riddle of life and death. Thank You, this morning, for his expounding of this particular one of Your actions , “But God will ransom my soul from the power of the grave, for he will receive me.” Amen