One Month to Live

Part II:  Live Passionately!



               Years ago, I served as a chaplain intern at VCU hospital.  Every day, I saw something new.  One of the premier things that I have never forgotten was a conversation with a Catholic priest I met while I was there.  He worked specifically with all the HIV/AIDS patients.  This was 1989, and the world of AIDS was different.  In those days, a diagnosis was a death sentence.  This particular priest worked with all those troubled, typically young males, who were facing their impending death.

               One day he told me about one of his patients.  In a surprising way, this particular man spoke of the blessing of his disease.  The priest asked him more about this, what he meant, and this man said this: “Everyone in the world has a bullet headed straight for their forehead.  I am blessed because I can see it coming, and I can get ready for it.”

               That dying man’s perspective speaks to our current Lenten sermon series. Hopefully by now, you know about our theme for these forty days.  Basically, we are asking ourselves the question, “If I had one month to live, what would I change about my life?”

               It is an appropriate question for Lent.  The ashes of Ash Wednesday are there to remind us that we are mortal.  All of us will go the way of the earth one day.  But the purpose of these forty days of self-examination is not solely upon the dark and gloomy.  They are here to point us to Jesus, and his journey to the cross.  In his death, he found and offered new life.  Death to self became a vehicle for life for us. 

               And so we follow him with the same perspective.  By facing our mortality, we actually find new life for us individually and even for the people around us.  Each week, we are looking at different ways that we might face our limits, and live differently right now.

               This weekend, we are recognizing that many of us would like to live more passionately.  All too often, especially as we grow older, we drift to the safe and moderate middle.  That may be a good thing in some places, like politics and other categories, but it is a dangerous place spiritually.  Spiritual passion may scare us, and to be sure, that have been places where it has gone astray.  But this weekend, we are going to take a look at Peter, the man who was moved by the appearance of Jesus on those waves, and found his passion carrying him out of the boat and on to the water.  Could we find this same Jesus and those same sure steps today?

               Come to worship on Saturday and Sunday, and we will speak of this some more.  See you there!!

Pastor Pete