2 SAMUEL 23

Friends, applaud. The comedy is finished. —Ludwig van Beethoven

Now I shall go to sleep. Goodnight. —Lord George Byron

Why do you weep? Did you think I was immortal? —King Louis XIV

I’m bored with it all. —Winston Churchill

I have tried so hard to do the right. —President Grover Cleveland

All my possessions for a moment of time. —Queen Elizabeth I

Oh, do not cry. Be good children, and we will all meet in heaven. —President Andrew Jackson

Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. —Oscar Wilde

These statements are all the famous last words of the person who uttered them. You might find some of them surprising. I certainly did. I thought Queen Elizabeth’s utterance was especially insightful. When you come right down to it, you can’t take anything with you. And depending on how you’ve lived and where you’re at in life, you might give everything you have for more time.

In this chapter of 2 Samuel, I was intrigued by the final words of David. To me, it was interesting what he chose to focus on. He didn’t mention his family, his friends, or his possessions. He didn’t talk about all his conquests and exploits as king. Instead, he focused on his relationship to God. In that moment—and it’s this way for every person—it all comes down to what is between you and the Lord.

All of us will, in one way or another, face that moment. It’s a moment God wants to have with us. It’s a moment where we come face to face with the reality that we are totally helpless, totally dependent on something or someone outside of ourselves. None of us have the power to sustain our own lives. Even those with great power, authority, and wealth will have to face the fact sooner or later that all their money and all their power can’t buy them one more minute.

In that moment, it will just be you and God. Your spouse won’t be able to help you. Your children won’t be able to save you. And what will go through your mind when you know that your time is up? When you are facing the door to the mystery of the future, will you trust God with what lies beyond? In that moment, it will just be you and Him.

God wants to have that moment with you. I think He designed it that way once Adam and Eve plunged us into sin: "And the Lord God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.' So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life." (Gen 3:22-24)

Instead of allowing us to continue on living forever in this sinful world, God "blocked our way to the tree of life." He opened up the opportunity for each of us, at some time, to have that final, Earth-bound moment with Him where it is just the two of us. I wish we wouldn’t be so afraid of that moment. I wish we could understand and embrace the idea that the gracious God who sustains us during our life is the same gracious God who holds us in our death. In life, we are in His hands. And in death, we are still in His hands.

Every moment we live is another moment closer to that special moment God will share just with us. What will we do when confronted with the reality that we are not autonomous? Maybe, for some, that is their first real moment of surrender to the Almighty. Perhaps others see it as just another opportunity to thumb their nose at a God they hate.

How will you respond when that moment comes? What will your last words be? My hope is that, when the time comes, I will not be afraid, but will echo the famous last words of another dying Man:

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. —Jesus Christ