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By: Michael Kornelis
You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.
You return man to dust,
And say, “return, O children of Man!”
...You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
Like grass that is renewed in the morning:
In the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
In the evening it fades and withers.
...So teach us to number our days
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
A couple years ago during the lenten season Pastor Joel gave us all black bracelets that read ‘momento mori’, Latin for ‘think about your death.’ It’s the definition of morbid, something moderns are especially uncomfortable with, but then again that is lent: meditating on our mortality as we march with Christ to Golgotha. We are dust. And to dust we return.
Yet there is a deep Chrisitan tradition of meditating upon one’s own death, daily keeping it ever before one’s eyes. But why? Well, because the Christian life isn’t a game of baseball but rather a game of soccer… or if you prefer futbol. That is to say the game of life doesn’t run on indefinitely like our great American pastime. The game doesn’t end when we happen to be done playing. But rather like the world sport, life has a clock, it’s running, and only the referee knows for sure when that time is up. The game ends when the time is up and not the other way around. And such is life.
Moses prays, “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” In other words the great prophet of old is saying, ‘Lord, teach us to watch the clock so that we’ll play smart.’ See, a good athlete is always paying attention to the clock, adjusting his or her cadence and strategies to the time remaining on the clock. Life is no different. Even Christ fixates upon his death. His eyes ever on the clock he plots meticulously his road to Jerusalem.
They say ‘youth is wasted on the young’ and that truism seems truer to me the older I get. In our youth we live life like a game of baseball, leisurely, paying no attention to time we squander it like a shameless prodigal. But the older we get, as our mortality begins to weigh on us we realize, ‘oh! This ain’t baseball… this is soccer, the clock is running.’ And so a heart of wisdom is gained. And what is wisdom but to turn away from what is temporal and fleeting toward what is eternal and immutable: God. Or as the apostle puts it ‘set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.’ Or as the teacher puts it ‘God makes all things beautiful in their time. Yet he put eternity in the heart of man.’ Or all the way back to Moses who teaches us ‘in the beginning God.’
So, today, memento mori! Tap back into the ancient tradition of meditating upon your death, a tradition as old as Moses. Think upon your death, which is to think upon Christ’s death. After all, in your baptism did you not die with him and he with you? So, think upon your death and number your days aright. Know that to gain your life you must lose it. Foolish to the world. But this is the heart of wisdom.