SOMETHING WORTH DYING FOR
In that mysterious and provocative book, Ecclesiastes, the writer insists (9:4, AV), “A live dog is better than a dead lion.”
I don’t doubt for a moment that the bulk of us in the West would insist that a live dog is better than a living lion. Some of us, who adore our pets, if pressed, would even think our dead dog is better than a live lion. But while dogs are precious and, in some parts of the world, even indispensable, they aren’t held in high esteem everywhere and that was certainly true of ancient Hebrews. Given the nature of our little Yorkshire terrier, Cassie, and our affection for her, it simply isn’t in Ethel or me to say a lion is better than her in any state. But, then, Ecclesiastes isn’t working from our perspective.
We don’t need to abuse “the Compiler” (the Qohelet—note the debate about how the word should be rendered) of Ecclesiastes even if we don’t always agree with him. In this text he is taking for granted the ancient view of the difference between the grandeur and majesty of a living lion and the pathetic Eastern living dog, usually a skinny scavenger of a thing. So picture the remains of a once majestic lion rotting in the sun and a skinny despised dog cautiously sniffing around it as it draws closer to the once mighty monarch. “A live dog is better than a dead lion.”
What is “the Compiler” of wise sayings (see 12:9-11) telling us in this 9:4 text? Given his perspective he is telling us that death is the worst of all states and consequently, living, however wretched it is, allows you to hope that things might get better but once you die it can neither get better nor worse!
And yet, he goes on to speak of living, even at its best, as meaningless; so you might as well eat, drink and be merry in this pointless merry-go-round called life (9:9). Still, however pointless he feels life to be and however pointless he thinks God meant it to be, he thinks death is the worst of all states! Given his perspective, who can’t see his point?
But however arguable his case, however wise the sceptics are in areas of philosophy and science and medicine, once we’re convinced by one sure word of revelation—one sure sight of Jesus Christ—we can’t follow them; for all their brilliance we can’t agree with them. With the appearance of Jesus of Nazareth and all that followed it isn’t possible for us to believe that a live dog is better than a dead lion—that is, that the supreme good is simply to be alive. It isn’t!
A dead lion was once a living lion and a living dog will one day be a dead dog.
Not all deaths are the same! There are deaths endured in glorious circumstances and deaths suffered in shame and cowardice.
Given the right circumstances some die the death of a lion and others die the death of a dog.
Is there not something worth dying for?
Men and women, young and old, have been laying down their lives for thousands of years so that others might benefit. These people loved and cherished life as much as the next person but there was that in them that cherished others and other things more than biological living.
To save his life Thomas Cranmer signed a recantation document in which he denied his soul’s convictions. Having done it he hated and couldn’t live with himself so he immediately recanted his recantation and swore that when he burned the first thing that would burn would be the hand that signed the cowardly recantation. True to his word when the flames were rising around him he shoved the offending hand into the flame and burned it right off and then died a lion’s death rather than live a dog’s life.
Charles Farrar Browne, born in Maine in 1834 died of TB at the age of thirty-three, but not before he became famous as Artemus Ward, a political satirist, to whom the city of Washington DC erected a statue. It’s said of him that he went into a polling booth and searched around in obvious bewilderment for the right docket. An aide asked if he could help him, “Who do you want to vote for?” Ward said, “I want to vote for Henry Clay.” The officer protested, “But Henry Clay has been dead for years!” Ward said, “I know, but I’d rather vote for Henry Clay dead than for either of these two candidates living.”
To love life and wish for good days is not only right, it’s natural and it’s a God-given capacity! Don’t be misled by some overly-pious talk about Christians being the kind that simply can’t wait to get out of this life and on to heaven. There’s a species of nonsense that floats around under the name of devotion to God that almost despises this life (at least, it speaks that kind of language), its pleasures and joys. Those who promote that think they’re speaking for God and all true Christians—they aren’t!
It isn’t just the “unknown” (that is, what we haven’t experienced) that keeps many of us from wanting to die, it’s the joy of life, the beauty of the creation, the glory of intimacy, the security of the familiar and the predictable and the warmth and loveliness of familiar faces and places. There are people who don’t want to be separated one from another even for a day—why should we think they’d want to be separated for who knows how long? Do we have to make heaven glorious and attractive at the expense of the loveliness of life? Must we speak disparagingly of this life in order to make heaven seem more desirable? It isn't hard to understand that the tormented and abused who have lived long in despair and ceaseless pain would look forward in eagerness for heaven but for those to whom God has given a wonderful life (especially if they are not without Jesus here and now)—what’s the hurry?
In the old song, The Sunshine of Your Smile the lover speaks of his beloved’s dear face and says, “Were you not mine/How dark the night would be/I know no light above that can replace/Love’s radiant sunshine in your own dear face.” He goes on to say, “Give me your smile/The love light in your eyes/Life cannot not hold a fairer paradise.”
The thought of heaven does nothing for this lover in comparison with the heaven he finds with his beloved and it’s easy in our piety to find fault with that. But sometimes we Christians try too hard! No one will deny that to be with Christ is better but humans are humans, and God himself acknowledges that. “How can you say you love me whom you haven’t seen,” he wants to know, “when you don’t love those you have seen?” (1 John 4:20).
To love our loved ones at Jesus’ expense just won’t do; but that’s not at all the same as loving our loved ones more than loving a picture of what heaven will be like. In any case, the single point I want to make at this juncture is this: anyone who loves no one and nothing profoundly in this life—someone/something worth dying for—has had an utterly impoverished life!
Nevertheless, while this lovely life of ours is to be cherished and enjoyed—it is not to be worshipped! It is to be lived and enjoyed to the glory of God and if it is to be surrendered when he asks for it then it is to be given to him in thanksgiving expecting that it will be returned in even greater richness.
©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.
Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.
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