The Value of A Life

On Saturday, one of my wife’s older sisters passed away. She was in her early sixties, her life shortened by her lifestyle, by irresponsible behaviors carried on to the very end. Nevertheless, she will be missed because she was a very entertaining personality, loving to be the center of attention, but rarely a bore. She was always smiling or saying something off the wall for a laugh.

The sisters wanted a traditional funeral service with a preacher. She had no pastor – she had been baptized as a Catholic by her grandfather. When she was older, she usually attended a Baptist church. One sister wanted an Assembly of God pastor to do the service, but she also wanted the funeral to take place on Monday – Memorial Day, short notice. There was no way one was going to be found.

They asked if I would do it. That’s probably not as surprising as it might be. I spoke at their father’s funeral – or tried to – half the time I was standing there sobbing myself. We worked all night Saturday and a good part of Sunday morning getting pictures and music together for the visitation Sunday afternoon, and then for the service yesterday.

My sister-in-law lived a hard life in many, many ways. She suffered. For the last several years, she has been in various care facilities, often drugged senseless – sometimes because of pain, sometimes because it was the only way to keep her from hurting herself or the staff. There were probably only about thirty of us at the funeral, and we all knew her, knew her story. My mother-in-law sat staring at the coffin of her “baby” as I stepped up to speak.

We knew the value of that life, we who knew her well. Others might not see it the same way. The world might look at her as a drain on society, someone who contributed nothing but took a great deal to sustain. Some might think it would be better to be rid of her. I believe, though, that the important issue is what God thought of her life. What value did He place on it? Why did He value her?

In Psalm 50:12, God says, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you.” God was speaking to His people about sacrifices, explaining that they were not to “feed” Him, but for their benefit, to teach the people the consequences of their sin. God proclaimed Himself all-sufficient, independent of any need for human help. He is infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, and utterly sufficient for Himself.

We, on the other hand are very needy and limited and lacking in power. We are not sufficient unto ourselves. There is always something missing. We always need something. We get tired, hungry, thirsty, discouraged.

How can we understand God? How can God understand us? Yes, He’s omniscient and our Creator, but does He see through our eyes? How could He know what it is like to be driven to despair, to be heartbroken, abandoned, fearful?

There is a great gulf between us, not only in understanding, but in the fact that we are sinful and He is holy. He cannot come and dwell in a tainted, contaminated vessel such as fallen man is. Religion attempts to clean man up, bring discipline. It even tries to make us spiritual athletes. But these efforts fall short. Our highest leaps cannot reach God. No tower can be built to heaven. What are we to do?

God, knowing we could not ascend, descends. Philippians 2:6-8 tells us how Jesus as the Son was very God in eternity past, how He laid aside His infinite attributes, humbling Himself to take the form of a slave and become obedient to death. In this He is able not only to provide the means of delivering us from sin, but He reveals God to man, and even man to God. Now God sees through man’s frame. He knows what it is like to live on this earth. He is now our High Priest “touched with the feelings of our infirmities”.

In John 4, we read how Jesus was in Jerusalem and wanted to return to Galilee. It said He “had to go through Samaria”. This speaks of His limitation, like man, in time and space. God can be everywhere present. Jesus knew what it was to have to travel to get where He needed to be. He and His disciples came to Jacob’s well in Samaria, and Jesus sat down to rest. Jesus was tired. The disciples left to get food. Jesus was hungry. As He sat there alone, He saw a woman approaching with a bucket to draw water from the depths of the well. Jesus looked at her, and He looked at the bucket, and He thought of the cool water down in that well. Jesus was thirsty. He spoke to her, “Give me a drink.”

Remember, God said, “If I were hungry, I would not tell you.” Yet now God asks a stranger and sinner for a drink, for He was thirsty and unable to get water for Himself.

If you go to Matthew 25:31-40, you will read a parable of judgment. The King calls the people together and divides them as a shepherd divides sheep from goats. To those on his right hand, the King says, “Enter into the joys of the Kingdom, for when I was hungry you fed Me; when I was thirsty, you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick and in prison, and you came and visited Me.”

The righteous reply that they did not do any of those things. “Yes,” the King says, “when you did it for the least of these brothers of mine, you did it for Me.”

Jesus identifies with us in all that we go through, with our hunger and our suffering. He takes it all as His own. If we can but receive this revelation, all suffering is suffering for Christ. We are yoked together with Christ – “take My yoke upon you”. He is bearing the burden with us. Jesus and I are suffering these things together, as one by His Spirit.

His blood has covered us and made us fit dwelling places for the Spirit of God. He sees our thoughts, our motives, and our desires. As Paul says, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me.” My life is His life, and His life is my life. When I pray and when I worship, God sees my thoughts toward Him. In a real way He can see Himself as I see Him. Now He knows us perfectly, and someday we will know as we are known. With this understanding, our suffering, heartache, loss, and pain takes on a new and glorified meaning. The Lord knows what it is to be me. My suffering is now part of His “experience”. Nothing I go through is in vain; nothing is lost. All is purposeful and meaningful, because God is living it through me.

[My goal] is to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead (Philippians 3:10-11).

For God, who said, "Light shall shine out of darkness" —He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now we have this treasure in clay jars, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are pressured in every way but not crushed; we are perplexed but not in despair; we are persecuted but not abandoned; we are struck down but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are always given over to death because of Jesus, so that Jesus' life may also be revealed in our mortal flesh. So death works in us, but life in you. And since we have the same spirit of faith in accordance with what is written, I believed, therefore I spoke, we also believe, and therefore speak, knowing that the One who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and present us with you. For all this is because of you, so that grace, extended through more and more people, may cause thanksgiving to overflow to God's glory.

Therefore we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory. So we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal (2 Corinthians 4:6-18).