Call No One Happy Until He Dies

The ancient Greek historian Herotodus (c.484–c.425 BC) claimed that no one should be called ‘happy’ until he has died, for until then we can never be sure what misfortunes may befall him. According to Herodotus, “the powers above us are full of jealousy and fond of troubling our lot. . . . [O]ftentimes the gods give men a gleam of happiness, and then plunge them into ruin” (The Histories 1.32). In other words, no matter how blessed someone may seem, we shouldn’t proclaim them ‘happy’ because we never know how their story will end. Only when their happiness has continued until their death can we really be sure such a person deserved to be called ‘happy’ in life. This view, of course, sees happiness as a matter of material possessions and other temporal blessings.

To some, Herotodus seems singularly pessimistic, offering a glass-half-empty perspective. After all, happiness that doesn’t last is still happiness, isn’t it? St Augustine, however, agreed with Herotodus that happiness that doesn’t last doesn’t really deserve to be called happiness at all. For that reason, he believed that there is no genuine ‘happiness’ on earth, since everything earthly is by its nature temporary. True happiness is reserved for life after death, when nothing good can ever be taken away from us against our will.

It’s a powerful and tantalizing vision: All the good things we’ve ever enjoyed preserved from ruin, decay, diminishment, the ravages of time, the loss of life or vitality. All the best preserved at their best. Everything and everyone we value all together in one place for us to enjoy forever. Now that would be happiness indeed!

The Easter story puts a whole new twist on Herotodus’s perspective. If Christians were to say, “call no one happy until he dies,” it might have a completely different implication—not that we can’t be sure earthly happiness will continue to the point of death, but that true happiness doesn’t really even begin until death. Herotodus worried that we can never be sure how a person’s earthly story will end: Sure, they may be blessed and successful now, but what about later? Christians take an opposite view. Whatever a person’s earthly circumstances now—whether blessed materially or not—we don’t have to wonder how their story will end. Jesus tells us: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12.32).

Does this foreknowledge spoil the story for us, ruining our anticipation of the unknown ending? By no means. Knowing that our end is secure in Christ’s loving arms provides a sure foundation on which to stand when we are buffeted by life’s frequent storms—and when we rejoice in life’s multitudinous blessings. Knowing the end of the story gives us strength and courage to risk spending our time, talent, and treasure in service to others, not worrying that we may lose ourselves in the process. When temporal blessing is not our first concern because we know that eternal blessing is secure, we can devote ourselves to following Jesus’ teaching to “seek first the kingdom of God,” resting assured that “all these things will be added” to us as we have need (Matt 6.33).

No, knowing the ending doesn’t spoil the story. It makes a bolder, more courageous story possible. The happy ending of Easter morning came for Jesus only after the darkness and suffering of Good Friday. For those who follow his way of the Cross, the happy ending comes ahead of time, as we anticipate already what “eye has not seen nor ear heard . . . . The things God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor 2.9).

What Are You Hoping For . . . Do You Know?

The season of Lent is supposed to be a time for spiritual introspection, a time when we at least temporarily lessen our attention to the material comforts of God’s good gifts in order to focus more closely on things of lasting, eternal value. This six-week journey toward Easter anticipates that central mystery of Christian existence, the cataclysmic separation-point of human history marking the boundary between ‘before’ and ‘after’—between despair and renewed hope.

The theme of hope puts me in mind of the Theme from Mahogany—a movie less enduring than its lyrical accompaniment, as many movies are. The song is appropriate for Lent, as it is also introspective, asking:

Do you know where you’re going to
Do you like the things that life is showing you
Where are you going to
Do you know?

Part of the aim of a Lenten journey is to reexamine our lives and, if necessary, to make periodic course corrections, straightening ourselves out, regaining our bearings. Where are we headed? Are we spending too much time on autopilot, so much so that we’ve lost track of our ultimate destination—if we ever had one . . . . Often daily demands absorb so much attention and short-term goals loom so large that we feel incapable of considering the longer-term trajectory of our lives. It is enough if the kids are fed, the dishes washed, the presentation completed on time, the homework done, the car washed, the bills paid, etc. We have no more energy or time to push ourselves farther than clearing the most immediate hurdles.

But a life forever lived engrossed in these necessary daily chores falls afoul of Socrates’ famous dictum: The unexamined life is not worth living. More importantly, perhaps, it falls far from the Christian goal of a life lived in intimate relationship with God. Abraham is said to have “walked with God,” and Moses is described as “a friend of God.” Yet every Christian is promised the same opportunity for divine intimacy that these favored patriarchs enjoyed. All it takes is time, attention, and desire.

Many Christians have recognized the importance of desire in growing closer to God. The medieval monastic reformer Bernard of Clairvaux, for example, thought that the motivation underlying Christian life involves a predictable metamorphosis of desire from the servile fear of God (and the threatened punishment of hell) to a kind of elementary love of God for God’s good gifts to us (a self-interested love of God) to a pure love for God that springs from a clear-eyed recognition and ardent appreciation of God’s own goodness and love (an unselfish love of God). For Bernard, this maturation of desire describes the arc of the true Christian journey. If you were to ask Bernard where he’s going, he’d answer: “to God.” And if you asked him how he hopes to get there, he’d say: “love.” Love is the path to God.

The Theme from Mahogany goes on to ask another question: “What are you hoping for—do you know?” Our hopes have a lot to do with the direction our lives take. What we hope for reflects what we love. Love can be the path to God if, with Bernard, we truly see the sheer wonder and immensity of God’s love for us and, in return, fall in love with our Creator. But the great theologian of love, St Augustine, plainly taught that love can lead in other directions as well. If a mature Christian love leads toward God, other loves can lead away from him. There are as many loves as there are objects of desire, and it is the objects we desire that determine the trajectory of our lives.

We hope for what we love—a new car, a great job, professional recognition, an ace on the final exam, the perfect mate, acceptance in the right college or the right social circles, health, long life, a fat bank account, lots of grandchildren . . . the list is endless. All of these things can provide some form of satisfaction for a season—that’s why we desire them. But this satisfaction is also doomed to end, often more quickly than we imagined. This satisfaction is also—though we secretly doubt this—less fulfilling than the highest and best satisfaction we human beings can experience. What are we hoping for? What are we really hoping for?

The real hope underlying all of these other chameleon-like hopes that distract us by enticing our attention to the myriad ‘things’ that lure us, the real hope is something that does not satisfy us just for a season and then vanish; it does not trick us into seeking it, only to yell “gotcha” as our satisfaction fades away. No, the real hope underlying all the kaleidoscopic objects of desire that blanket contemporary society is a hope so basic, so simple, that we rarely dare to trust it.

But for 2000 years and counting, in every time and every place, people throughout the nations have found this hope to be so astounding, yet so real that they are compelled, like the fisherfolk to whom it was first proclaimed, to drop their nets and go running after it, clinging to it so fiercely that they never let it go. This hope, however fragile it may sometimes appear, is a hope strong enough to look the world full in the face, denying none of its evil and injustice, none of its corruption and crime, yet all the while affirming that there is a power greater than all of this: There is a love as strong as death, a light that shines in the darkness, a Lover who will never abandon the beloved.

What are Christians hoping for? As we mark off the slow, solemn weeks of Lent and the lingering darkness of winter, waiting for the heavy stone to be rolled away from the tomb of our hearts and the new light and life of Easter’s springtime to enter in, let us take time to ponder this question anew, remembering that our hopes have everything to do with our desires, and that what we love sets the trajectory for our lives. Let us seek the only hope that does not disappoint in the only love that never ends.