Christ No Matter What

“Christ No Matter What”—May 31, 2019

"For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain." [Philippians 1:21]

Ten little words in English, but they sure are powerful.

Surprising, too, maybe. And against the grain of our usual thinking. But powerful ones.

Let’s be clear, though: Paul isn’t just mismatching opposites here. He isn’t just saying “black is white and up is down” to sound profound like some caricature of a zen master. There is an underlying logic, even if it sounds like the opposite of common sense at first.

Let’s start at the end: dying is gain. At first blush, that doesn’t sound right at all! Dying is sorrowful. Dying is heartbreaking. Dying means pain and separation. And loss. Certainly not “gain.” Think of how we even talk about death: “He lost his battle with cancer,” we say, or the doctor comes into the family waiting room and says, “We tried everything we could, but we lost her and couldn’t get her back.” Death doesn’t seem like it’s about gaining anything.

At first, we might want to be angry at Paul for saying such a thing. How insensitive, Paul! Don’t you know that kind of remark is going to rub salt in the wounds for anyone who has felt the sting of grief? How can you so glibly say that “dying is gain” when we, who have lived through the deaths of people we have loved continue to feel such loss over it?

Ah, but Paul has lost people, too. Paul knows that death involves loss. Paul has wept over friends and fellow brothers and sisters in Christ who have died. Even Jesus wept over the death of his friend Lazarus—mere moments before he was to raise him from the dead! But, of course, all the pain of that loss is really for us who remain alive. We feel the pain of loss. We feel the empty place in our heats. But Paul is talking about himself here—he is saying, “When the time comes for me to die, it will really be for my gain!” Death is loss, but it is also the end of loss—it is the point at which there is nothing left to lose. And Janis Joplin is not too far off the mark on her refrain that “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Paul got that and said as much 1,900 years before “Me and Bobby McGee” hit the charts.

For someone whose life is hid in Christ, dying means freedom. It means release from the weights we carry, the burdens of life, and the responsibilities we shoulder. For us who have found our hope in Christ, death really is gain, because it means death can’t do anything more to us—the power of sickness, of separation, of sorrow, they are all broken, and we will find ourselves in the immediate presence of the God whose love was so strong as to face death for us, too. If we did not have that hope of a God who will not lose his grip on us, then sure, death would be nothing but loss—the ultimate loss of our grip on ourselves. But because of Christ, death becomes not a stopping point, but a gateway. It doesn’t mean we seek out death, of course. And of course, the world may not understand it, but for us who have found our hope in Christ, dying really does mean gain.  We still grieve... but the fact that Christ is alive and risen means we grieve differently.

But now, here’s the thing that gets me about Paul’s powerful little sentence in Philippians 1:21—the first half of his little pair is not “To live is loss.” You might expect that, given the way it ends with “dying is gain.” That would have had a nice rhythm to it, a nice balance and symmetry. We might expect Paul to say something like, “Since dying is really about gaining eternity, this life is awful and miserable by comparison,” or something like Thomas Hobbes’ famous decree: “Life is nasty, brutish, and short.” And to be truthful, sometimes Christians do get sloppy and say things like that—that because we’re going to heaven one day, this life is just a waste, or just a practice, or just a matter of putting your time in until the streets of gold and gates of pearl.

But Paul doesn’t say that. In fact he goes out of his way and breaks what would have been a neat and tidying pairing in order not to say that. Instead of saying, that “living is loss and dying is gain,” he says that living is "Christ." Now, what on earth could he mean?

Well, he’s really only saying the other half of what allows him to say that “dying is gain.” Dying is only gain for us because we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection. Death’s power is broken over us because we have been united with Jesus’ death and his new risen life. So when we die, our lives are still held in Christ, who never dropped us or loosened his grip on us even for a moment. And when we continue to live, we are still living with Christ alive in us. So at every moment, even right now as you read and as I write, Christ dwells in us, and living this moment is a matter of letting Christ live more and more fully in us.

But see how that changes our perspective on this life. It’s not meant to be tragic, dire drudgery. It’s not meant to be just putting our time in or paying our dues. It’s Christ himself, active in us, equipping us, recharging us, renewing us, and working through us. It means that every moment of this life, and every minute of this day is filled with divine purpose and beauty. Yes, dying may be gain—the gain of freedom from having to carry the weights of this life. But for us, living is not drudgery, either—it is the privilege of being allowed to have Christ live and move and act through us. And that, if you ask me, is some pretty powerful stuff in its own right.

So today, no matter what happens in this day, there is good news to be spoken. If we live through this day, Christ will be present in us, working through us and filling us to fullness, because we are indwelt by Christ. And if it should happen that you or I breathe our last on this day, we know that there is nothing death can do to us any longer, and its power is broken, because we are held by Christ.

On the one hand, filled by Christ. On the other, held by Christ. No matter what today, you and I will be brought right into the very presence of Christ. Let us have our eyes open.

Lord Jesus, we give you this and all that will happen in it. Grant us to see the gain for us no matter what is in store in this day.