Human life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
So said 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes. And so say I.
Sure we live many days in relative ease and complacency messing around with our Netflix shows and our kids activities and our phones. But it’s coming. The day you get the call and the facade of stability in your world is shaken. Someone you love has crashed. Or collapsed. Or was diagnosed. Or is just simply gone.
Death is coming. For your distant relatives. For your acquaintances. For your most cherished loved ones. For you.
In the absolutely incredible book, “Remember Death” we read, “you are perishing along with everyone you care about…Even if your life plays out in precisely the way you imagine for yourself in your wildest dreams, death will steal away everything you have and destroy everything you accomplish.” (McCullough, Matt . Remember Death: The Surprising Path to Living Hope (The Gospel Coalition) (p. 24-25). (Function). Kindle Edition.)
Death is coming. Human life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.
We don’t know how much of an enemy Death is until he comes banging down our front door. We don’t know how much we need a way beyond the grave until we’re weeping over one. We don’t know how badly we crave a life that is connected, abundant, beautiful, noble, and eternal until our hearts have been crushed and splattered by Hobbes’ awful alternative.
We are busy and distracted, forgetting we need heaven. Until we desperately do.
For those who say that faith in God and hope in heaven is a crutch, a fairy tale, an escape from reality, I strongly beg to differ. Perhaps it’s the ongoing pursuit of a life of ease and complacency that’s the crutch.
The gospel of Jesus Christ actually agrees with Hobbes’ perspective. Admits it. And boldly, clearly offers a way out.
Perhaps for some people, it’s not until they’ve had to come to terms with the despair and hopelessness and excruciating pain of loss that they might have the humility to need the Savior.
And maybe only those truly, deeply, personally acquainted with grief will find Christ’s confident promise of the resurrection so immeasurably powerful.
“I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26).
I do.