Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Note: Somehow I skipped over verses 13-17 in chapter 4. I’m not sure why, but as I started preparing for James 5: 12 I was reminded of the passage I had skipped over. So, let’s rewind for a few days and visit these words of James.
As I write this the world is embroiled in a war against an unseen enemy. A virus known as “Covid-19” has been unleashed and is running rampant. Wherever it goes, it lashes out at everyone around it. What sets it apart from other viruses is its speed and the potential nastiness of its effect on a person’s lungs. Within a matter of weeks beginning last December, the virus has infected most of the rest of the world. Slowly (it seemed) more information has become available. Suddenly, it seems, the country was shut down and we are all sitting at home.
Today we wonder how this happened. How did we become virtual prisoners in our own homes?
Two thousand years ago James warns us that this could happen. Certainly, none of us were talking about Coronaviruses last December! Instead, we were planning our family gatherings, meeting together for Christmas, going to church. How many of us asked the question, “Are you making any New Year’s resolutions?”
Whatever we might have “resolved” to do, it didn’t matter. What mattered was a virus was starting a journey of a million hops as it jumped from person to person. People, not knowing they are sick, travel by foot, car, and plane. Sitting next to someone for many hours on a plane would make it easy for the virus to “hop” over to that person. Hop, hop, hop. The virus started jumping and the world changed, seemingly overnight.
James puts all this into perspective when he asks, “What is your life?” He continues with, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” A mist is not very substantial when compared to the reality of God. As Shakespeare put it so well in “As You Like It:”
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts…
He describes the parts of a man’s life and ends with this:
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
“Sans everything,” meaning without anything.
Our physical self is a mist. Our physical life is a moment on the stage that God has provided for us. Our real life begins when we accept that Jesus is our Lord and Savior. Through Him, we are reunited with our Maker. Through Him, we are redeemed from our offenses towards God (sin). Through Jesus, we find that life really begins when we step off of the stage and into God’s arms.
Application: Since this time on stage is short, let’s use it to honor our God by loving Him and also loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Food for Thought: This world can be a frightening place. How does faith in God ease our fear of death?
Jesus said that He is the resurrection and the life. He said that if we believe in Him we live even if we die. He has taken away the sting of death by defeating death. Death is a defeated enemy, not yet destroyed, but defeated. If we trust in Jesus and trust His word, the fear of death diminishes as we apply faith. (John 11: 25-26; 1 Corinthians 15: 54-57).
Rich,
I love the reference to John 11 where Jesus raises Lazarus. Martha gently chastises Jesus for not arriving in time to save her brother. Jesus responds, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Jesus has given each of us life, we have passed from the dead, became eternal beings the moment we accepted Christ. Some choose to accept this gift as a retirement program, others choose to accept this as a way of life and enjoy living in Gods Kingdom now. To all who accept life now, their is no fear of death.
John 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him.”
John 5:25-26, Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
1 John 5:12 He that has the Son has life; and he that has not the Son of God has not life.
Ron,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and the scriptures! Freedom from fear of death is an incredible gift!!
👍🏻