Your Time Is Running Out!
In 2007, the movie “The Bucket List” was released. It tells the story of a corporate executive, played by Jack Nicholson, and a mechanic, played by Morgan Freeman, who are both diagnosed with cancer. Rather than remain in the hospital and undergo chemotherapy, the two terminally ill men escape from the cancer ward with a plan to experience life to the fullest before they kick the bucket. In a race against the ‘Grim Reaper,’ the new friends redefine the meaning of life in the precious time that remains to them, learning more about themselves and each other in the process. How many of us have a ‘bucket list’… a written list of the things we would like to do or experience before we kick the bucket? I would wager that many of us have such a list… even if it is only partially complete… but I would also wager that we have not looked at that list recently. And some of us… if pressed… would have to admit that we have no idea where our list might be. Thus, there is little chance that we are actually working on our bucket list at this time.
The focus of Ash Wednesday is to remind us that we are not immortal. Our time on this earth is finite… as we have heard through the scripture passages that Russell Bowden shared with us. Like the grass, we will wither and die. Like the flowers, we will fade. As God’s curse on Adam from Genesis reminds us… we were created from dust and to dust we will return. As I was thinking of that earlier this week, I remembered the opening credits of one of the longest running soap operas on American television: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” Perhaps, for a majority of Americans, that is true… the days of our lives flow like the sands through the hourglass. Americans enjoy one of the highest life expectancies on the planet. The current life expectancy for an American male is 76.3 years and for an American female 79.1 years, but there are no guarantees that any of us will live that long. We tend to look upon such “gestimates” as entitlements when, in reality, we could fall on either side of the bell curve… even into the extreme tails of it. We might live to a ripe old age… and our genetic makeup may help us to do so… but we could also find that a traffic accident… or a natural disaster… or a serious illness… may lead to what others may label ‘an untimely death.’ What a very human perspective that is… for no deaths are ‘untimely’ in the eyes of God. We will all die when our time arrives… and death will come despite all the trips we make to the fitness center… all the creams we put on our faces to stave off ravages of time… and all the vitamins we take. It will come regardless of where we are in accomplishing the goals we have written out on our ‘bucket list’… whether we are at the end… in the middle… or before we have even started. As a pastor, I can tell you that I have yet to meet someone who has completed their ‘bucket list,’ whether they were eight or eighty years of age. It almost seems as if the list gets longer, the older we get. But lest we allow ourselves to believe, for one moment, that we will get it all done… and be able to tie our life up neatly with a bow before taking our final curtain call… Lent arrives to remind us that we are mortal… that we are not gods… and that our time is running out… and we cannot predict when our final day will be.
Our last Service of Healing and Wholeness was dedicated to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. During that service, we participated in a very special remembrance of them that I would like to share with you at this time. Please stand and move to where there is a tea light sitting in a votive candle holder. Imagine, for one moment, that this candle represents the life of a person in Haiti on that fateful day. Look at the flame as it flickers… jumps… and glows… and think of a living being moving through the city of Port au Prince. Make this person as real in your imagination as you can. Was this a man or a woman? Was he or she old or young… married or single… healthy or ill or disabled? Did he or she work for a living? If so, where? What did he or she do during the day? To whom did he or she come home at night… a spouse… children… a disabled relative… a friend? What was he or she looking forward to doing that evening… watching television… going out… seeing friends… engaging in a sporting event? Now, picture this person late in the afternoon, on his or her way home… and, with that picture in your mind, blow the tea light out.
Please return to your seat. That life on Haiti is gone… with all of its hopes and dreams… with all of its good intentions and future goals… with all of its love… its laughter… its sorrow… and its joy… with all of its connections to other people. You… on the other hand… still have a life. But there are no guarantees that you will have that life tomorrow. As the man in our text tonight learned… the gift of life that was given to you may be snatched away at any moment. Are you prepared for that? What is the status of your relationship with the significant people in your life…your parents… your spouse… your children? And, given all that waits for you in the life beyond death, what is your relationship with God? Here is the one who has given his only begotten son so that you and I may have life. Have you even spoken to him today?
When we speak of our ‘bucket lists’ and all the things that we would like to accomplish in our lifetime, how often do we think of God’s plan for our lives… and the ‘bucket list’ he may have prepared for us? Many of you have shared with me the nudges that you get from God from time to time… nudges that push you toward a task you believe God has laid before you… or an act of service for another that would ease their burden, if only for a moment. How many such acts are on the ‘bucket list’ that God has put on his refrigerator door with your name on it? Have you asked him? And, if you have been putting it off… waiting for a better day… or a day when you actually have time to do this thing for someone else, when will it actually get done… before or after you kick the bucket?
When you arrived tonight, you should have received a gift at the door… the gift of a small sand timer. I want you to take that sand timer with you… and place it where you will see it every day of Lent. Each time that you see it, I want you to repeat the words from the soap opera, “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” Like the sand in the sand timer, the time allotted for our lives is finite. That time is passing. Your day of reckoning is coming. You may even be able to see your bucket from where you sit. Is it full or empty? Are you ready to kick it? Are you prepared to be ‘shuffled off this mortal coil?’ What will you do today… tonight… to prepare for that fatal day?
A fellow pastor friend of mine is dying of breast cancer. As she prepared for her latest round of chemotherapy, she compiled a CD of all the songs that serve as an inspiration to her and she shared a copy of that CD with me. My favorite: Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying!” It’s the song that tells of a man with a terminal illness and how the recognition of his mortality changed his life. The second stanza of the song goes like this:
He said I was finally the husband that most the time I wasn’t
and
I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin’ wasn’t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book and I took a good long hard look
at what I’d do if I could do it all again…
When life becomes boring… when every action becomes routine… when we live under the assumption that we have years left to fulfill our dreams… to share our love… to help another… to get right with God… we need to remember the people of Haiti… or the young athlete who was killed on the luge at the Olympic Games… and we need to begin to live like we are dying… because we are. We don’t have all the time in the world. Our time is running out! Amen.
Genesis 2:4b-7; 3:17b-19; and Luke 12:13-21