03 August
‘A life shaped not by despair or indifference, but by hope, love,
and a deep commitment to life itself’
“Today human life itself is in acute danger. It is not in danger because it is threatened with death; that has always been the case. It is in acute danger because it is no longer loved.”
These words from Jürgen Moltmann’s Ethics of Hope still speak with clarity. Reflecting on the aftermath of the Second World War, Moltmann describes a time when people became “used to killing and used to being killed”. He draws on the words of Albert Camus, who, in the wake of war, wrote: “The secret of Europe is that it no longer loves life.”
Moltmann argues that this loss of love for life stands in direct contrast to the witness of Scripture. The Bible, he explains in detail, is deeply concerned with the fullness of life, “the life that is wholly and entirely filled with livingness.” This is why we proclaim and trust in the Gospel of Life: the good news of Jesus Christ, in whom wholly human life shares in wholly divine life.
We need to be clear, he says, about what this Gospel of Life tells us about eternal life. It is not only about the length of life, but even more so about its depth and quality. Eternal life is not simply endless existence, but a “life full-filled by God”. Life matters to God, and so it must matter to us. It must be affirmed and cherished, because it bears within it something of the eternal. As Angelus Silesius once wrote: “The rose blooms, it blooms without a why, it blooms because it blooms.”
I am deeply troubled that we may be drifting away from a culture that values life, and into what Moltmann described as a culture of becoming “used to killing and used to being killed”. When I look at the images of starving children in Gaza, consider the enormous challenges faced by UN aid workers trying to reach those in need, and watch the political hesitation to act decisively, I fear that we are forgetting how to love life.
In our reading for Sunday, from Colossians chapter 3, Paul takes up the theological foundations he laid earlier in the letter and applies them to everyday life. His instructions seem to urge the Colossians to grasp what life in Christ really looks like. It is a life that is full-filled. A life shaped not by despair or indifference, but by hope, love, and a deep commitment to life itself.
Marius Louw