Weighing the Options
30 Days in Philippians - day 9
Philippians 1:22-24
But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless to remain in the flesh is more needful for you.
One of the interesting things about this well-known text is how Paul seems to suggest he has a choice. He can choose to live or choose to die. It seems what Paul is doing is simply suggesting that he is torn about what his personal preference is and not that he can enact a choice in the matter. And he does so to put death, which was a very real possibility for him, in perspective.
Death can be used as a weapon against us if we live in fear of it. I suppose most people assumed Paul would be doing everything he could to save himself and preserve his life. Instead, Paul was quite content to be put to death if that was the Lord’s will at that time. And this was the secret to his ability to spiritually impact the people around him. The whole palace guard had heard about Christ from him because he wasn’t silenced by the fear of death.
Because death had lost its power over him, fear had lost its voice and that made his witness impossible to ignore.
He looked at both life and death as having beneficial outcomes. If he lived he could continue his ministry and bear fruit in this world for Christ. If he died he would be with Christ. This, of course, was far better. Paul is not weighing life against loss, but usefulness against fullness.
The word he used for death is “depart.” The Greek word was used to describe a soldier taking down his tent and moving on. Sailors used it to describe unmooring their ship and setting sail. And it was used in government to describe setting a prisoner free.
In every case, death is not an end; it is a release, a movement, a going home.
All of these are good ways to think about dying as a Christian. This tent of flesh is taken down and we move on from here. That which anchors us to this world is loosed and we set sail to our eternal home. And we are set free from that which imprisons us here – our sinful corrupt state.
Of course, most of all that departure points to an arrival...we arrive at a place where we are with Christ.
When we struggle with the idea of our inevitable death, or when we are tempted to be be silent about our faith because of threats against us we need to stop and remember what death means for a Christian.
It does not end our story. It brings us to the One our story has been about all along.
