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5/11/2008
GOT HOPE?
Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006. Despite an aggressive cancer treatment that included major surgery and experimental chemotherapy, the disease has now spread to his lungs, liver and spleen.
A month after his diagnosis, Pausch delivered his last public lecture, an exuberant speech about achieving your childhood dreams, at Carnegie Mellon. The stirring speech became an internet sensation and the basis for a new book, The Last Lecture.
Although I greatly admire Pausch’s positive attitude, personal courage, love for his family, wit and sense of humor, and his quiet acceptance in the end of the fact that “I’m not going to win this battle’ with cancer, I was disappointed that he did not offer something more substantive, in terms of what really matters to most of us in life and death.
In both his last public lecture and in subsequent interviews with Diane Sawyer on ABC News, Pausch declined to discuss his faith; he saw it as a private matter. And I appreciate and respect his position.
Yet to me, it is not possible to offer any source of hope and peace in the face of death without addressing faith and the spiritual dimension of our lives.
Yes, it is admirable to do everything you can to fulfill your childhood dreams (after all, that’s the American Way), and to “try to have fun with every single thing that you do”, and to help other people along the way, if you can.
And then what? Is that enough to dispel the fears and regrets? Is it an adequate philosophy of life? Does it truly offer hope and peace at the end of the day, or it there perhaps something more solid to which we can anchor our lives?
We all have an understandable fascination with what people might have to say to the world when faced with the possibility of death. And whether young and healthy or nearing the end of life, there is something potential instructive for us all to contemplate the late-in-life, if not the end-of-life, words of others.
Here are just a few examples to think about:
The meager satisfaction that man can extract from reality leaves him starving.
– Sigmund Freud
It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all of one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than, “Try to be a little kinder.”
- Aldus Huxley, humanist and author of the book Brave New World
All the wisdom of this world is but a tiny craft upon which we must set sail when we leave the earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.
- Socrates
I die before my time and my body shall be given back to earth and devoured by worms. What an abysmal gulf exists between my deep miseries and the eternal kingdom of Christ… I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself and of Alexander and of Caesar should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant – Jesus, should be able to stretch his hands across the centuries, and control the destinies of men and nations.
– Napoleon
These personal reflections from famous personalities betray the fact that the positions they took, and the priorities they embraced early in their lives, did not satisfy their longing for meaning and purpose.
Men like Napoleon, Alexander and Caesar committed their lives to building empires, only to discover at the end of their lives that their accomplishments were nothing but sandcastles. The mission to which they committed their lives did not transcend the satisfaction of their own needs and personal ambitions, and ultimately, their lives had no meaning.
More tragically, these men who many throughout history have tried to emulate, offer no hope for the future, or any real answers to life - either in this life or the here-after.
In contrast, here’ what the apostle Paul had to say at the end of this life:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. - II Timothy 4:7-8
Tami Palumbo, wife and mother of five young children, has been battling breast cancer for almost seven years. During her battle with cancer, she continued to serve faithfully alongside her husband Mike as missionaries in Mexico City.
Now the cancer has spread to her bones and her liver and the doctors do not offer much hope; the doctors have told her that she may only have two weeks to live. As I write this, the Palumbo’s have brought Tami back home to the US, where she can be close to her family and friends and receive the hospice care that she needs.
Tami’s quiet personal testimony to the world when death is eminent is a profile in courage, faith and hope. I was deeply moved by it, and I encourage you to read it for yourself on my website. [Spiritual Resources, God and Cancer, Cancer My Teacher].
When I was in college one of my classmates summed up his view of life as an accident suspended between two accidents: “I came into this world by an accident of birth, and some day I will leave this earth by an accident of death.” If this were true, then I suppose grabbing all the marbles you can while you can, could be considered an adequate philosophy of life.
But surveys show that the vast majority of Americans believe in life after death, and so does most of the rest of the world.
Benjamin Franklin famously stated that, in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. But the Scriptures speak of two other certainties beyond this life; the concept of a final accountability before our Maker (Amos 4:12; Hebrews 9:12), and the idea that it is actually possible to know for certain that we have eternal life:
And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you in order that you may know that you have eternal life. – I John 5:11-13
The ancient Hebrews writers described God as the source of their hope (Job 13:15; Psalm 38:15), the hope of the afflicted (Psalm 9:18), the hope of Israel (Jeremiah 17:13), and the horn of my salvation (II Samuel 22:3). New Testament writers have written of the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7), the living hope (I Peter 1:3), the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), and the hope of salvation (I Thessaonians 5:8). And Jesus referred to Himself as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).
It is in the context of this resurrection hope that the Apostle Paul quoted from the Jewish prophet Hosea, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? (Hosea 13!4, I Corinthians 15:55).
So the good news is that we can face the future - and yes even death, with no sense of fear or uncertainly. In fact, God wants us to live out each day on earth with hope and experiencing His peace.
And for the person who knows Christ, when we have exhaled our last breath here on earth, the very next breath we take in will be in His Presence in heaven!
5/10/2008
GOT HOPE?
Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September 2006. Despite an aggressive cancer treatment that included major surgery and experimental chemotherapy, the disease has now spread to his lungs, liver and spleen.
A month after his diagnosis, Pausch delivered his last public lecture, an inspirational speech about achieving your childhood dreams, at Carnegie Mellon. The stirring speech became an internet sensation and the basis for a new book, The Last Lecture.
Although I greatly admire Pausch’s positive attitude, personal courage, love for his family, great sense of humor, and his quiet acceptance in the end of the fact that “I’m not going to win this battle’ with cancer, I was disappointed that he did not offer something more substantive, in terms of what really matters to most of us in life and death.
In both his “last lecture” and in subsequent interviews on CBS with Diane Sawyer, Pausch declined to discuss his faith; he saw it as a private matter. And I appreciate and respect his position.
Yet to me, it is not possible to offer any source of hope and peace in the face of death without addressing faith and the spiritual dimension of our lives.
Yes, it is admirable to do everything you can to fulfill your childhood dreams (after all, that’s the American Way), and to “try to have fun with every single thing that you do”, and to help other people along the way, if you can.
And then what? Is that enough to dispel the fears and regrets? Is it an adequate philosophy of life? Does it truly offer hope and peace at the end of the day, or it there perhaps something more solid to which we can anchor our lives?
We all have an understandable fascination with what people might have to say to the world when faced with the possibility of death. And whether young and healthy or nearing the end of life, there is something potential instructive for us all to contemplate the late-in-life, if not the end-of-life, words of others.
Here are just a few examples to think about:
The meager satisfaction that man can extract from reality leaves him starving.
– Sigmund Freud
It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all of one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than, “Try to be a little kinder.”
- Aldus Huxley, humanist and author of the book Brave New World
All the wisdom of this world is but a tiny craft upon which we must set sail when we leave the earth. If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail, perhaps some divine word.
- Socrates
I die before my time and my body shall be given back to earth and devoured by worms. What an abysmal gulf exists between my deep miseries and the eternal kingdom of Christ… I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself and of Alexander and of Caesar should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant – Jesus, should be able to stretch his hands across the centuries, and control the destinies of men and nations.
– Napoleon
These personal reflections from famous personalities betrayed the fact that the positions they took, and the priorities they embraced early in their lives, did not satisfy their longing for meaning and purpose.
Men like Napoleon, Alexander and Caesar committed their lives to building empires, only to discover at the end of their lives that their accomplishments were nothing but sandcastles. The mission to which they committed their lives did not transcend the satisfaction of their own needs and personal ambitions, and ultimately, their lives had no meaning.
More tragically, these men who many throughout history have tried to emulate, offer no hope for the future, or any real answers to life - either in this life or the here-after.
In contrast, here’ what the apostle Paul had to say at the end of this life:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day. - II Timothy 4:7-8
Tami Palumbo, wife and mother of five young children, has been battling breast cancer for almost seven years. During her battle with cancer, she continued to serve faithfully alongside her husband Mike as missionaries in Mexico City.
Now the cancer has spread to her bones and her liver and the doctors do not offer much hope; the doctors have told her that she may only have two weeks to live. As I write this, the Palumbo’s have brought Tami back home to the US, where she can be close to her family and friends and receive the hospice care that she needs.
Tami’s quiet personal testimony to the world when death is imminent is a profile in courage, faith and hope. I was deeply moved by it, and I encourage you to read it for yourself on my website. [Spiritual Resources, God and Cancer, Cancer My Teacher].
When I was in college one of my classmates summed up his view of life as an accident suspended between two accidents: “I came into this world by an accident of birth, and some day I will leave this earth by an accident of death.” If this were true, then I suppose grabbing all the marbles you can while you can, could be considered an adequate philosophy of life.
But surveys show that the vast majority of Americans believe in life after death, and so does most of the rest of the world.
Benjamin Franklin famously stated that, in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. But the Scriptures speak of two other certainties beyond this life; the concept of a final accountability before our Maker (Amos 4:12; Hebrews 9:12), and the idea that it is actually possible to know for certain that we have eternal life:
And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life. These things I have written to you in order that you may know that you have eternal life. – I John 5:11-13
The ancient Hebrews writers described God as the source of their hope (Job 13:15; Psalm 38:15), the hope of the afflicted (Psalm 9:18), the hope of Israel (Jeremiah 17:13), and the horn of my salvation (II Samuel 22:3). New Testament writers have written of the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:7), the living hope (I Peter 1:3), the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), and the hope of salvation (I Thessaonians 5:8). And Jesus referred to Himself as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).
It is in the context of this resurrection hope that the Apostle Paul quoted from the prophet Hosea, O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? (Hosea 13!4, I Corinthians 15:55).
So the good news is that we can face the future - and yes even death, with no sense of fear or uncertainly. In fact, God wants us to live out each day on earth with hope and experiencing His peace.
And for the person who knows Christ, when we have exhaled our last breath here on earth, the very next breath we take in will be in heaven!
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