My Dear Shepherds,
In the 1989 movie, Dead Poets Society, Robin Williams played a teacher at an elite boys’ school where, as you may imagine, he broke all the rules of decorum in teaching. In one lecture he asks his class the meaning of the Latin phrase, carpe diem, “seize the day,” linking it to a line of poetry, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” Then he tells them the poet wrote that line, “Because each and every one of us are food for worms, lads. Because, believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die.” So, carpe diem.
The Apostle Paul had his own upgraded version of carpe diem when he challenged Timothy:
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Tim. 6:12)
A few verses later, he commends those who seek true riches. “In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” In Philippians 3:12-14 Paul wrote, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me … I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
We, too, believe in carpe diem, not because we’re trying to outrun the worms, but because we are seizing the eternal day in the coming age to which God called us.
Pastors deal in the realm of the eternal all the time. Everlasting life is our gospel stock-in-trade. But it is dreadfully easy, given all the pastoral pressures we face, to neglect the pursuit of our own eternal life—our own holiness, our own earnest desire to find God’s will, in both attitude and deed, and to do it for his glory.
Sometimes I watch worshippers with upturned, blissful faces, hands stretching out in their Godward yearning, and I worry that I’m not like them. I worry that I’m not straining toward what is ahead. Maybe I’m merely ambling along, distracted by curiosities instead of running the race.
There are certainly times when God’s Spirit runs up alongside us telling us in no uncertain terms to pick up the pace, to get our focus back on the finish line. The gospel twist is that he doesn’t actually want us to work harder. Rather, he wants us to draw closer. Perhaps even to run slower, if you know what I mean.
It’s a paradox: We strive with all our might to lay hold of the eternal life Christ has already given us. In our run for Life we must cast off entangling sins and the lifeless choices that leave us gasping. Our great advantage is the Holy Spirit within us, our God-given Breath of eternal life, who is like the oxygen given to athletes. We cannot neglect this inward duty! God’s people are depending on us!
Hebrews 6:18 speaks of “we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us.” Pastors distributing eternal truths and caring for eternal souls must ourselves keep a good grip on our own eternal life “until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you [elders] will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.”
So, dear friends, carpe diem.
Be ye glad!
