The Bungee Cord

Hello,

Last week, a friend of mine and I went to Florida to take in a couple of Pirate preseason games and thaw out from the winter cold. As we were awaiting our flight in Pittsburgh, a man about my age sitting across from me noticed my Illinois baseball hat and inquired if I had gone there. I told him that indeed I went to U of I, and then he, who went to Maryland, started his tales of his college days, which in his words were a lot of “drinking and chasing girls”. His stories were mingled with a lot of flowery language, that is many words began with “f”, and then he went on to tell about how he and his college buddies go someplace every year to “drink and chase girls”, which he was on his way to do.

It was about this time in our conversation that asked me what I had done with my life, and I told him that I had been a Lutheran minister for 43 years. With that, he sat up a little straighter and said, “Well, I guess that you won’t be doing a lot of drinking and chasing girls.”

“No,” we both replied. He then “confessed” that he didn’t go to church very often, and he started telling me of his friends who were devout “born again” Christians. Then he said, with a little smirk in his eyes, “You know, as I am getting older, I am finding those things a bit more important.”

I suspect that many people, whether they are into drinking and chasing girls or not, would say that the concerns of the Christian faith become more important as they get older. The reason, I believe, is that as one ages, the sense of one’s mortality becomes more and more apparent. I know that it has for me. Having been through cancer, dealing with chronic high blood pressure, and wallowing through depression the arrival of my final day is not a distant thought.

However, for me, I do not find myself more attuned to my faith than when I was when I was younger. You see, for me, I do not find myself believing in Jesus so that I might go to heaven, on the contrary, I find myself certain of life beyond this life because I believe in Jesus. In other words, heaven is not the goal of my faith, Jesus, whose love for me is so great that he promises me a place in heaven, is my faith’s goal.

Truth to be told, I was far more concerned about things eternal when I was younger than I am now. I remember when I was a young adult waking up in the middle of the night, my heart racing over the specter of my death. The incompressibility of eternity brought me chilling fear. The final period that death puts on the story of my life was ominous. So, as I would lay there, electrically awake, I found myself saying to myself, “I have seen how much God has loved me in this life, and so I can trust that whatever the next life brings, it will be just as wonderfully filled with God’s grace to me. And with that thought blanketing me, I could go back to sleep.

As I have slept and awakened over the years with that faithful thought in my mind, I find myself far less anxious about my death. As a have gone to bed under the nightly prayerful protection of God and awoken each day under the shepherding care of the one who has named me as one of his own flock I find myself far less concerned about the day I will die, and far more concerned and thankful for each day that I live. I find myself far more interested in making the most of my days to love and help others. I find myself far more at peace with strolling through life rather than sprinting for victory. I find myself driven to be graceful rather than judgmental. I find myself living in the wonder and the joy of a Biblical verse that has brought me the light that no darkness can overcome, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.” (1 John3:1)

It is my hope that each Bungee Cord that I send reaches those who read it with a weekly embrace of God’s love, so that those who read it might find themselves as I do, far more thank-full, joy-full, and peace-full the older we get.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger