SIGNS OF LIFE OR DEATH

“How can we tell if someone is dead or alive? What are the reliable signs of death – or of life?

…Over the years the major evidences of death have indeed been these three basic definitions: no heartbeat, no brain activity, no breath. Interestingly, in the Cairo museum in Egypt, alongside the mummies of some of the more powerful Pharaohs are placed three urns. Inside the urns are the vital organs of the Pharaoh: his heart in one, his brain in another, his lungs in the third. Thus even in ancient Egypt, heart, brain, and lung activity were considered the vital signs of life. The absence of these three meant death.

In recent years we have added a fourth sign of death...“when machines or other external devices are required to sustain life artificially.”

With this as a backdrop, I suggest that these four symptoms – no life apart from external machines, no heartbeat, no brain activity, no breath – are also the precise symptoms of spiritual death. That is, when faith is fully dependent on somebody else or on the external machine of religion; when faith loses its heartbeat of concern for others; when faith stops stretching the brain and challenging the mind; or when faith loses the Spirit-breath of God – then we are in trouble. We are spiritually dead!

The good news of our faith however, is resurrection! We can come alive again. God can reawaken the vital signs of life within us…that we might find that which makes for abundant life.”