If I should die before I live
Conclusion

So finally, where do we really find the deep sense of responsibility that is required and the capacity to relate to the world at our doorstep? From our Lord Jesus Christ, Paul seems to be quoting a poem that could be well known in his day:

Wake up from your sleep, and rise from death. Then Christ will shine on you.

It means not only that Christ shines on us, but that Christ shines through us to our fellow human beings. If we are to truly live today, we need to look at that Man on the cross again, the Man for others, the Man of Galilee, as our pattern for the living of our days. Charles Lamb, the nineteenth century writer, said the highest tribute to Jesus when he said to a lecture audience that revered Shakespeare: “If Shakespeare should come into the room right now, we would all rise; but if Jesus Christ should come in, we would all kneel.”

And that is definitely so, for Christ breathes into our human life, into our homes, into our Church, into our classrooms, into our life, and there is health. He moves about us, and we discern a certain cleansing power. He whispers into our souls, and there is an abundance of love surging through us. His living presence is to men and women like summer in what is called “the writer of our discontent.” And as J.B. Philipps, the Bible translator, puts it, “If you are trying to lead a Christian life, and you realize you're coming to the end of your moral strength, you cry: “O Christ, help me,” something does happen; there is aliving Christ that is immediately available to you.” And many of us here know this truth from personal experience.

For us to have Christ as the pattern for our life, we are to be engaged in perpetual striving towards the fulfillment of God's purpose for us now. For human life is described in the Bible as transitory; like vapor according to James, like the flower of the field that blooms but briefly and ends like a sigh, according to the Psalmist.

One of the most soul-awakening was the honoring of two young Ateneans who perish in the plane crash that killed some one hundred four people in the mountains of Mindanao .

The honors to the young men were very well-deserved. They were two earnest young men, just over thirty, whose talents were very marketable in big corporations and in the government, but they chose to put their lives on the line for the causes of the poor and the forgotten of our society.

As I sat there (and there were tears in the eyes of many) I recalled the words of that song from the play, “The Man Of La Mancha.” You see, the Man there may be seen as a Christ-figure. And the words are pregnant with the thought of how to truly live before our lives finale.

“This is my quest, to follow the star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far, to fight for the right, without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.”*

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