Smashed wasps and other dying things...

Kenya has a lot of death. A lot. When we want to brush our teeth, for instance, we boil water to kill the parasites. They all die. When Jess sees an unwelcome six-legged critter flying around our apartment, she animatedly tracks it down with wide eyes and flailing hands to kill it. When a patient's injured toes have begun to share a pungent odor of gangrene, we know that the appendage has died. When our Tenwek pediatrician has a rough day, it marks that the nasty GI plague has just claimed another baby. The count was up to eight dead babies the other week.

Death is a paradoxical thing for the Christian. Looking at it from one angle, death is the most unnatural state imaginable. After all, Adam began in the Garden as an immortal being, where death was not known. After all, we are children of the One whose very breath creates life, the Life Giver himself, who knows not decay. After all, our eternal destination is to shed these temporary bodies and live in Real Life for all time.

From the other angle, however, death is entirely natural for the Christian. In fact, it is paramount and essential. Jesus modeled it that way. To follow the path of Jesus is to follow him to the cross. He invites us - no, commands us - to join him in the shame and pain of Calvary. It seems that an inescapable feature of love is death. It dies to its own desires, it is long suffering, it does not demand its rights, it humbles itself even to death. I John 3:16 tells us how to know love - "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." The mark of pure love involves death.

I don't know how to do that very well. The Lord has been bombarding Jessica and I with examples and teaching from people here who die well. We heard this message recently in our Bible study and in the Sunday morning sermon. Yet when I swing out of bed in the morning, my first thought is not to crucify myself with Jesus. That would just hurt too much.

Graciously, the Lord continues to hone us. He desires that we die to ourselves and is much less concerned about our worldly comfort than we think he should be. But that is good, because comforts can distract and numb us when God would call for our full attention and complete sensation to the needs around us. It's a paradox - that we have to die in order that we might live and feel and truly be.