Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-5-22

An emotional week around here, capped by a funeral this morning. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this” – I have attended too many lately, and occasionally I have been inspired to share thoughts, with your indulgence. They all are not “funereal” these days, as services do not have to be maudlin. When my family conducted a hospital ministry, we were introduced to joyous “home-going” services in Black churches; and they altered our various perspectives.

But today’s instance was about the hardest of all challenges to a family and friends, because 17-year-old Aaron – not his name, but it will be here – decided himself that it was time for his home-going. Permit me the euphemisms.

Hard enough, of course, but the act was more jarring because only hours earlier he was out with friends, laughing in diners, taking selfies. Only weeks before he decided to be baptized, and even presented his testimony of renewed faith in Christ and the joy it brings. Only months before he had “graduated” from a program that works with youth who experience episodes of depression, sometimes having attempted extreme measures to escape the anxieties they felt.

Yes, Aaron had for several years been in and out of ugly depression and occasional feelings of rejection, self-loathing, irrationality. The world saw the happy kid – intelligent, handsome, popular, and always (counter-intuitively?) faithful to Jesus. A daily Bible reader. Keeper of theologically introspective journals.

Questions. Of course there are questions.

Despite what our contemporary world insists we blithely believe, that “nothing matters anyway”… we need to ask questions, but there are no answers. Certainly not to everything; no Googling, no experts, not even – horrors, can I say it? – not even in the Bible. Listen: if we knew everything, we would be God. The Bible has answers for all that we need, but not every thing we want, or wonder about. And as soul-searing as some things are, even “sanctified” curiosity will remain mysteries until we gain Eternity.

That’s hard, but it’s true.

We ask, WHY?

And the world mockingly answers, Why not?

I think God answers, The important question is not Why, but What – in this instance, What did Aaron make of his life? What did he do in his life? What are the ways he touched people? What difference did he make?

The “why” questions involve a sort of permissible selfishness, as I recently discussed in this space. Of course we feel horrible for the soul who has “passed,” but the largest ingredient of Mourning is… mourning for ourselves. How we will miss our child, sibling, or friend. Mourning for the sudden hole in our lives. And that is OK.

But I had the thought during the service that every life means something. Every. Life. Modest people might think that’s true for others but not for them. No. That’s not life’s way. It’s not God’s way.

We all have meaning, we have effects. We can see this… or not. We can plan it… or not. It can be acknowledged… or not. Effects can live after us… No: they do live after us. Our lives matter; what we do matters. All of us, in little ways or big, actually want to make a difference.

So in that way, whether you live 17 years or 117 years, what you do matters. It matters to other people. It matters to God.

In that perspective, our friend Aaron packed a lot of “meaning” into 17 years. Impressing uncountable people with his good nature, adventurous spirit, and Christian activities. In a bizarre and seemingly cruel circumstance, it was precisely a year ago that his cousin and best friend, almost the same age to the day, was laid to rest after suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm; he also had packed an A+ personality and smarts and Bible study and social activity into a “brief” life.

I know it’s not a Bible verse, but we think of the phrase “Quality, not quantity” in the cases of young men like them.

In my own family’s hospital ministry mentioned above, the toughest questions we were asked by transplant-listed patients, families, or survivors was Why? Why me? Why my brother, why my son? I finally felt liberated – able better to minister in some small way – when one morning I answered, “I don’t know!!!”

The important and essential follow-up is, “Let’s pray about it. Let’s seek God.” Maybe we can cope a little bit better; maybe we can find peace; maybe there is healing indeed under the shadow of God’s wings (Psalm 36:7).

And maybe we can discern, and celebrate, and savor, the meaning of that person’s life… and as tough as it seems, choosing instead to look beyond only the length of his days.

If we can receive those blessings, we can start to make sense of things. And that’s a good road to travel when other paths lead to bitter tears and confusion and anger and resentment.

Life can be mean… but we must seek out the meaning. The seeking, itself, is a balm. And then we realize, as I asked above, that death can be a detail, but life is a fact.

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Video Click: Does Jesus Care?