Learning to die like Jesus

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

 Learning to die like Jesus

The community of believers was of one heart and mind,

and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own,

but they had everything in common.

If that passage refers to our Stuff, and of course it does, it also refers to our Soul. We are all one river.

It was easy to see the pain and frustration Dad felt as his body grew weaker.  In 2002 I didn’t understand how much his mind and spirit were changing too.

There’s this one eternal moment with Dad. We were alone in the kitchen. “How are feeling, Dad?” His eyes looked tired. He smiled. “I guess I’m about ready to die.” Nothing much to remember, but the memory of his gentle facing me and God and death, no need to look away or talk about something else rests quietly inside me.  I think I just smiled back, and touched his hand.

I wonder how fear reached into him at times during those few weeks before he died. Mom got to see that more than any of us, I guess.

There was no needy person among them.

I’m losing weight, fifty or sixty pounds, and my pants don’t fit so I find smaller waists at Salt and Light or the Salvation Army. At the same time my eyes don’t work as well in the evening as they do in the morning, and those verses in Ecclesiastes remind me that I’m wearing out. How is that OK? Don’t I want to live forever?

I’m very grateful to recall that moment with Dad, and a moment with Mom (age 99) when I was tucking her in and she prayed Luther’s Evening Prayer, as she often did. She was a little girl then, and I think she remembered her dad Herman Brummer praying that prayer 95 years earlier, probably in German, sitting on the edge of her bed like I was now.

I don’t know how many rivers I have yet to cross before reaching the Rubicon (although Julius Caesar CHOSE to cross his river). But I am sorting through my emotions and memories and relationships and offering them up. Really, it feels more like they are sorting through me. Mom made list after list, and compiled scrapbook pages to beat the band. I notice how important those archivings are to me.

At our church, I take notes during the sermons. The sermons often take my breath away, and I write faster and faster. Those spiral-bound reporter notebooks are perfect. So much is happening! I don’t want to miss a thing! And often my thoughts and notes spin out of Pastor Matt or Pastor Kevin’s orbit into someplace entirely my own. Last week I felt a great desire to make lists of “all my clients, all my friends, all my family, all my mentors and teachers, all my music, authors, book, historical events …” for as far back as I could.” At least I got as far as making a list of the lists. Now I’m thinking … how can I get ChatGPT to help me with this?

Enthusiasm (Greek for full of God) is my best word to describe this. But as I wrote yesterday and have thought about ever since, I’m looking toward a quiet embrace, a “thought-free” embrace of silence, quiet, peace with Jesus. That “enthusiasm” is at least as valid and appropriate for me. For all of us? It’s just a matter of getting there without trying.

Dad had ALS from a WWII thing, at least that’s what the doctors thought. He became very stooped over, and of course that made it hard for him to breathe. A few months before he died, in the Lincoln hospital, I’m remembering another moment, when I wanted to help him breathe, and I became his “teacher” for about five minutes. He breathed deeply the way I told him to.

I don’t know why that surprised me so much, but it did. And it still does. He breathed and breathed, and I knew how much I loved him. And he loved me, breathing as best he could. He breathed until on Thanksgiving morning he didn’t anymore, until as a physician’s memoir puts it, “his breath became air.”  I love the idea that our air is all on loan from God. Margaret has been reminding us of that lately, and I’m thankful every time she says it. Like our Sunday School teacher Fred said a couple days ago about his own dad, “He breathed out … and didn’t breathe in again.”

The Son of Man must be lifted up,

so that everyone who believes in him

may have eternal life.

Jesus and Nicodemus had their famous conversation before Jesus died, before Jesus didn’t breathe in again, long before the cross became a decoration to wear around our necks. Watching that on YouTube this morning with Margaret, I realized the story and the message and the savior are beginning to be new to me again. Sure, I’ve heard John 3:16 a thousand times, but the “enthusiasm” I’m talking about whacked me in the head again this morning.. It hit Nicodemus too, and the fears he had for Jesus’ life were blown away in a gust of ruah wind. His own fears too. In an instant eternity was more real than all the Stuff around him, his body and wife and position and money, all of which would soon wear  and die, and that would be that. Jesus overtook him, although the next day he was afraid again. And felt great grief.

Jesus seemed to understand. That’s the great thing about God. Nicodemus was ‘safe” no matter what. Us too. We’re getting there, and on the way, I hope I can relax and know how much I’m loved.

What’s that line about death and taxes? Tomorrow’s April 15^th. Yuck. Who likes taxes?

But at least we get to die. Hallelujah!

(Acts 4, Psalm 93, John 3)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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