By Marcos Paseggi Even those recently baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church have seen them.

If you have belonged to the church since you can remember, there is no doubt they ring a bell. They are already part of Adventist lore. In any of these artistic illustrations, a family—usually a father, a mother, a boy, and a younger sister—neatly dressed and with neatly combed hair, are looking up into the sky. They are smiling. They look as they usually look when leaving for church on any Sabbath morning. But it is not any Sabbath morning. And they are not going to church. They have just found out that Jesus is coming with His angels to pick them up and take them to heaven. A few minutes ago they were hiding somewhere in the mountains and caves of the earth, but now they are freely standing, with their arms up and no trace whatsoever of dirt or distress, ready to meet Him in the air.

In recent years, however, some artists have come to realize that, given the circumstances anticipated by revelation, muddy jeans and torn T-shirts may be more like it. They have even included some scratches, sweat, and blood on the saints’ faces. But be it in spotless Sabbath morning attire or dirty and baggy jeans, as Seventh-day Adventists we look forward to that morning. We think about it. We dream of it. And we picture ourselves standing there, ready to be taken to where we really belong. We are the privileged ones seeing the small black cloud. We are the ones hearing the trumpets. We are the ones rejoicing. We are the ones singing and saying: “Lo, this is our God, we have waited for him, and he will save us” (Isa. 25:9, KJV).

In fact, unless we are well into the retirement years, we usually picture ourselves as being alive when Jesus comes. After all, we were created for life. And we are yearning to be there, in the spotlight, as first eyewitnesses of one of the greatest events in human history. For all our belief in the resurrection of the righteous, we still would rather avoid having to wait for our angel to break the tombstone and take us out of our cold spot under the earth.

Lately it has occurred to me, however, that I may not be alive when Jesus comes. No, I am not even close to retirement. No, I am not terminally ill. And no, I am not planning to die anytime soon. But being in my mid-30s, an age when—according to some church pundits—you move from the future to the past of church membership, it has made me realize that there is a slight but concrete chance that I will not make it.

For one, we do not know the time of Jesus’ coming. He could come tomorrow, which for many of us, anyway, could be too late. Besides, at least in my case, I know through personal experience what it means to entertain the possibility of dying young. And even in my mid-30s I have already attended too many funerals of young people—even babies—as to take life for granted.

So how can we live healthy and fulfilling lives under the ever-present shadow of death? Is it enough just to avoid thinking and talking about it until we get to our 60s or 70s? Where should our focus be as we keep waiting for the day?

To Live or to Die, Is That the Question?
In our world life is overrated.

Do not get me wrong. In too many places and circumstances life is worth too little. People die by the thousands because of hunger, disease, and crime that, for the ruthless selfishness of the human heart, could be easily prevented. But at the same time, together with this pervading sense of worthlessness, our human existence is often given an intrinsic value that, to say the least, is not biblical. The important thing—pop culture emphasizes—is to keep breathing, to stay young, to make it to 100 years, even if it implies living selfish, aimless, unhappy lives. “When there is life, there is hope,” a common saying goes. And it may be right, but for the fact that such belief often overshadows the reality of a hope that transcends death and this world.

In Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy, Hamlet ponders his own existence and sense of duty by asking himself:

“To be or not be—that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”¹

A few lines later Hamlet entertains the possibility of dying. What actually makes him anxious is the possibility of death as avoidance, as an easy way out, much easier than staying alive and being faithful to his call. As it turns out, Prince Hamlet decides to go all the way, to really “be,” even though he ultimately loses his life in the process. In his case, his mere dull existence is subordinated to a sense of faithfulness and fulfillment that transcends life on this earth.

Sometimes I wonder why many of us cannot live up to the ideals of that fictitious character.

A Risk Worth Taking
As Seventh-day Adventist Christians our greatest risk is not that we die before our prime or are forced by circumstances to taste the unfriendly grave for a little while. Our greatest risk is that we pass through this life without committing to anything worthwhile, contenting ourselves with just making it to the next morning. Our greatest risk is in being dead while alive, being like the Laodicean-like rich young man who turned away from Jesus very sad (see Luke 18:23), not the heroes who were stoned, sawn in two, and slain with the sword for the sake of their devotion to the Lord of the universe (see Heb. 11:37, 38).

In the introduction to his book Take the Risk Ben Carson states: “Anyone who refuses to test his limits, anyone unwilling to move out of her comfort zone, is destined to live life inside the envelope.”² Those acquainted with Carson’s story know very well that he means what he says. So did Ellen G. White when she wrote: “An aimless life is a living death.”³ And when discussing the role of the church as the light to the world, she stated: “It is a solemn thing to die, but a far more solemn thing to live.”⁴ Only when we start to believe this maxim and live accordingly are we enabled to present our bodies as “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Rom. 12:1, NKJV).⁵

In the Presence of the Lord
The apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he penned: “So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him” (2 Cor. 5:9, NLT).⁶

The context of Paul’s statement makes clear that Paul is referring to his ministry, and is explaining how God is the one who qualifies us for service ?(2 Cor. 3:5). As human beings, he says, we are bound to decay. In fact, we are no more than fragile jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7). In case we have any doubt about what he really means, the apostle becomes even more specific: “Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day” (verse 16). So God wants our focus to be not on life or death but on surrender and service.

You and I might be alive when Jesus comes. Or we might not. But if we surrender our will and talents to Him, if we try to please Him in our daily service and live constantly in His presence, from out of the cave or the tomb we shall “meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” ?(1 Thess. 4:17, NKJV).

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1 Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1.
2 Benjamin Carson, Take the Risk: Learning to Identify, Choose, and Live With Acceptable Risk (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), p. 8.
3 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 4, p. 417.
4 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 466.
5 Texts credited to NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
6 Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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Marcos Paseggi is a professional translator, enthusiastic writer, and biblical researcher writing from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  This article was published November 17, 2011.