I often cringe when I hear Christians talk about the lists of things they want to do before they die: “I really want to go sky-diving, at least once, before I die” or “I want to, just one time, climb Mount Kilimanjaro before I’m too old to do it” or “I want to see the pyramids, before I’m gone.” There’s nothing wrong, of course, with wanting to do these things, but often the hidden subtext is: “You only live once.”
The assumption behind this is deeply un-Christian, the idea that our span of life is merely the next ten or twenty or a hundred years. If we assume that what’s waiting for us beyond the grave is a postlude rather than a mission and an adventure, we will cling tenaciously to the status quo, or at least the parts of it we like. We will want to, just like the pagans, want to eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die. (Regardless of all this, you probably should see the pyramids, though, if you want to, since the Book of Exodus casts a little doubt as to whether Pharaoh’s monuments will make it to the new earth).
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