An advance directive is not the solution

It usually takes a hospital admission before people think seriously about advance directives and living wills. But these days people are hearing the advice about getting one before it's needed... just in case.

But, as I've focused on "what I would want," I find I'm really not all that sure of what I'd really want. This far removed from the reality of the choice, it just seems so hypothetical. What would I really want if I were really choosing?

So, just when I thought I'd read everything that could be said about Terri Schiavo, I really found something fresh in Mark Steyn's Sunday Sun Times column. Here's most of the part I found most challenging.

We all have friends who are passionate about some activity -- They say, ''I live to ski,'' or dance, or play the cello. Then something happens and they can't. The ones I've known fall into two broad camps: There are those who give up and consider what's left of their lives a waste of time; and there are those who say they've learned to appreciate simple pleasures, like the morning sun through the spring blossom dappling their room each morning. Most of us roll our eyes and think, ''What a loser, mooning on about the blossom. He used to be a Hollywood vice president, for Pete's sake.''
But that's easy for us to say. We can't know which camp we'd fall into until it happens to us. And it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.

Right now, when I'd wonder how I'd be able to go on, I might make one choice. But maybe, if faced with the real choice, and not just the possibility, I might find the strength and grace to do what I can not imagine doing now.

Which leads me to appreciate the wisdom behind something else I read last week. In The Weekly Standard, Eric Cohen wrote, "The human answer to our dependency is not living wills but loving surrogates." Or, as I'm beginning to think, the answer is not a piece of paper I write today with hypothetical musings on something that may or may not be real. The answer is caregivers who know my values and commitments well enough to think and choose what I'd likely choose, if I knew what the situation actually was.

Which makes a kind of sense. Why should the solution to a human dilemma be a piece of paper? Surely the proper way to resolve a human dilemma is with a human solution.

Easter Saturday: waiting for the promise

“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NIV)

Few churches have much of an Easter Saturday service. Good Friday usually merits a special service or two. Often these have extra elements to help them stand out as uniquely memorable services. And Easter Sunday usually gets the special celebration treatment with sunrise services and special things the rest of the day. We barely acknowledge anything special about Easter Saturday.

The bulk of commentaries treat the affirmation in 1 Corinthians in a similar way. “Christ died for our sins” on Good Friday, and the commentators have lots to say about that. Christ “was raised on the third day” on Easter Sunday, and, again, the commentators have lots to say about that. But “he was buried” does not get much attention. Just like Easter Saturday.

The crisis of Good Friday was past. The dramatic events were becoming part of their memory. Reality now was a quiet tomb site, a stone rolled across the opening. Guards ensured the security of the sealed tomb.

It was the Sabbath, the day of rest and contemplation. So no distracting themselves in the ordinary tasks of life. They had to face their grief and their loss. On this day of contemplation, they had much to think about. For all those years they had travelled with Jesus. They had learned and seen so much. They had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. (Luke 24:21)

But now what? In the living Jesus, they saw power and hope. He had made some promises about the future that were hard to understand, but what sense did that make now? He was crucified, dead, and buried. And life now seemed to be a godforsaken mystery. How do we go on now?

Almost every commentary on First Corinthians slips right from the death on the cross to the resurrection on the third day. I can appreciate that. I’d rather live with the fact of the resurrection than the promise of the resurrection. I’d rather live in the fact of joy than rely on the promise of joy to get through grief and loss.

And yet, in a sense Easter Saturday is where most of us live today. We’re somewhere between the events of the Bible and the fulfilment of the promise. We know the fact of the teaching and the promise of the joy of eternity. But just what that teaching means now is sometimes a little fuzzy. And on some days, it sure would be nice if the promise of resurrection could be the reality of the resurrection.

Some churches recognize Easter Saturday with a midnight vigil. That service in the midst of darkness often begins with the lighting of a candle. One candle in the night can make a big difference.

His word of promise, his word of direction, his word is a light for our path. It helps us keep going until the promise that gives us hope becomes a glorious reality.

He had been crucified. He was buried. But he promised his disciples even death could not keep him from being with them. That half-understood promise was a tantalizing hope through that long, quiet Saturday. And it can keep us going now as we wait for the day when hope becomes sight and the promise will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Glory be to God!

The Reality of His Sacrifice

““For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures…”” 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 (NIV)

This material Paul passed on “as of first importance” is certainly one of the oldest, most original Christian affirmations of faith. Previous posts have looked at how “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.” Let’’s turn now to the next phrase, “that “he was buried.””

There is a moment in every funeral when the reality hits. Sometimes it happens at the grave side service. Often these days it’s when the casket is finally closed. Something happens to confront people with the reality of the death.

The reality that Jesus died was hard for the early church. The disciples didn’’t want to hear about it when Jesus told them it was coming. Some of the earliest heresies in church history centred on ways of denying the reality of Jesus’’s death on the cross.

Was it the shame of the means of his death:— crucified like the most despised criminals? Or just the difficulty of accepting the idea that the Son of God could die like a mortal? The early heresies blunted the reality of what Jesus suffered by finding spiritual or metaphorical understandings for his sacrifice on the cross.

But that death was real. And the followers and friends of Jesus had to face it at the burial. Denial had to end with the thud when they ““rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.”” Matthew 27:60 (NIV)

It was not an illusion. It was not a dream, It was not something from their imagination. It was not a metaphor for a deep spiritual reality. It was not an abstract philosophical construct. It was real. And it is a fact at once wonderful and terrible.

As the Hymn goes, "’“’Tis mystery all, the immortal dies. Who can explore His strange design?"” Truly a fact beyond knowing, a certainty beyond comprehending.