Human Mortality – Hovering Over the Great Gulf
As we continue another week of Lent With the Wesleys, we're going to look at the passionate hope for life after death that the early Methodists had. Both John in his writings and preaching, and Charles in his hymn-writing, often spoke of the fact that believers in Christ need not fear death, and that Christ's promise to restore all things gives believers a positive outlook.
Our Temporary Existence
Let's read today from John Wesley's Preface to his collected sermons. He wrote: "I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: Just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity!"
Wesley knew that he was a mere mortal, and that as a human he was always, in a sense, close to death. In this way he echoes the words written in Psalm 90, a famous Psalm written by Moses, which says: "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12)
Many of us have heard that verse quoted at funerals we attend. When we sit in a church pew and see a closed casket, or hear grieving people share of their sense of loss, we are reminded that our own time is short. Much like Wesley, we are reminded that we are 'just hovering over the great gulf' ourselves.
Two Responses to Mortality
This awareness of our own mortality can have one of two effects: it might cause us to panic and fear death even more. John Wesley himself, as a young man once experienced a harrowing storm on a boat trip and felt terrified of dying. He was amazed to see a group of Moravian Christians on the same boat, calmly singing songs of praise as the storm raged on. In that moment Wesley realized that his faith was quite shallow. True faith in Jesus and the salvation He offers removes our fear of death, and once Wesley grasped this his life changed – later on in a sermon called What is Man? he wrote this: "God has given us his Son, his only Son, both to live and to die for us! O let us live unto him, that we may die unto him, and live with him ever!"
It seems to me that an awareness of your own mortality – of the fact that you are "just hovering over the great gulf" as Wesley put it – will cause you to fear if you don't believe in Jesus, or it will cause you to really live for Him, if you do know Him, while you still can.
Which Wesley are you going to mirror today? Young Wesley shaking in fear as a deathly storm approached? Or mature Wesley with his faith in Christ, living to the glory of God with all his might?
The choice, as always, is yours.
