It’s to die for!
These are days that are undeniably unprecedented. Some aspects of life have eroded on our watch; there’s an understandable lament that is shared in groans when we’re among like-minded friends who react to modern cultural life as it goes on around you.
At the same time, some parts of the 21st Century experience have accelerated away from the standards of the past to create user reviews that exceed the five-star metrics that used to suffice.
The dessert-du-jour at the trendiest new restaurant in town; the waterfront resort hotel that opened after the covid lockdown and is now overbooked; the test drive of the electric European sport coupe whose acceleration feels like the laws of physics have been temporarily suspended; the mobile device that could render your notebook computer obsolete. “Best in class” keeps trending up…
What do these various products, services or experiences have in common? Lacking adequate adjectives, we’ve embraced an idiom that is a four-word review: It’s to die for!
Colloquialisms often race ahead of dictionaries as words or phrases that relieve the frustration of trying to describe the extraordinary in the face of inadequate vocabulary. No one really believes that you would trade your life for a slice of seasonal strawberry shortcake, or another afternoon on a beach where water, air and sun had teamed-up for the perfect conditions. “To die for” is an overstatement, for sure: when you only have one life, trading it for opportunities that are more desirable than their competitive options is not even a reasonable calculation.
There is, however, fascinating truth woven into that qualitative conclusion. While we think in terms of the binary line between death and life – knowing that each of us will one day be finished and forgotten – there is a sense in which death is far more incremental than we imagine: “I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I die daily.” (1 Corinthians 15:31)
Paul – whose writing was inspired by God’s own wise Spirit – reminded his friends in Corinth that in each of his days, death would chip away at his lifetime. Dying daily is not a poetic musing; it’s a reasonable assessment of life as it is spent each day, trading for the license to think, say and do that which will either benefit ourselves in the moment or others in the context of Eternity.
There are some things worth dying for: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)
Jesus was no one’s fool: He carefully calculated the cost to Him that salvation for the planet would require. As His spiritual spreadsheet considered all of the factors, He rendered a decision that was predicated on His righteousness, not ours: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
When the Father and the Son looked at the human race – fallen in the Garden, and rebellious in every generation – they agreed on their response: “It’s to die for!” And, Jesus did.
Because of that, there’s a reasonable response we are compelled to offer: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Galatians 2:20-21)
So, with 25,000 days at our disposal – or, close to 30,000 if we’re careful (Psalm 90:10) – every day, we bury a part of our lifetime. Every minute of every day – spent to acquire, enjoy or influence – the question is the same: was that to die for?
May we live like we were dying! (Click here: Tim McGraw will sing us out!)
