End of Life Fruits

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Years ago my father was talking with a neighbor who sold cemetery plots. This neighbor had been very nice to my brother and me, giving us an opportunity to earn money and I’m certain my father was thankful for the opportunity we’d been given. In this case, however, it meant that dad was forcing himself to sit through a sales pitch for headstones and caskets.

Forty years later, we remember that dad had been asked to choose between a traditional headstone and a flat granite marker that would lay flush with the lawn, so "the lawnmowers can mow right over it!" My dad was emphatic. "I want them to have to mow around me, every time." Dad wanted to be remembered!

The Bible tells us that after we’re gone, it is the fruit of our lives that will be remembered.

I do not believe in a religion of works, but of fruit. Salvation comes from faith in Jesus, alone, but a life of righteousness lived out of thankfulness to the Lord who sent his Son to save us will bear good fruit.

Matthews 12:33 says, "Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruits." When we say we want to finish the race well, or live a life well lived, what we often mean is that we want people who look back on our lives to see good fruit among the branches of our life experience – fruit that will last (John 15:16). Bad fruit is discarded immediately, hopefully forgotten. We want to be remembered for a long time. We want to be significant. We want to be used by God to fulfill the purpose He has for us. When our life ends, we want others to celebrate the fruitfulness of our time here on earth.

Psalm 92:12-14 says, "The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are never full of sap and green." We do not stop bearing fruit in retirement. Far from it. In retirement we have more time to help others, time to pay closer attention to the relationships around us, and more life experience so we are better able to sense a need in the people whose lives cross our path.

We have more opportunities to bear fruit that lasts for an eternity. While we are working, we are too involved in accumulating the perishable. Making provision for the future is important, of course, but ultimately work is mostly about survival and less about bearing fruit that is eternally in season.

At the end of our life, and particularly in the very act of dying, we have opportunities to make an impact for Christ on those who watch our faith walk at the moment we pass from this world to the next. Genesis 50:24-25 tells us that, "Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die. But God will surely come to your aid and take you up out of this land to the land he promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ And Joseph made the Israelites swear an oath and said, ‘God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up from this place." On his deathbed, Joseph believed with all of his heart that God would honor an oath made to Abraham. Since Joseph wanted to be close to God he directed his family to bring his bones with them to the Promised Land. This act of confidence – Joseph’s spiritual legacy - has stayed with Joseph’s church family for generations. Even today, we continue to be awed by the faithfulness Joseph showed in his last moments. While financial legacies are dissipated quickly, these oral and written histories of how previous generations were rewarded in their faith bear fruit for years to come.

It may seem odd to start talking about retirement with a meditation on the legacy we pass on at the end of our lives, but these stories are celebrated at the wake, told and retold by our children’s children, and ultimately are the fruit that plants and nurtures seeds of faith in future generations. If we are to begin retirement planning with the end in mind, then we ought to start by imagining a fruitful end.

Of all the goals we have for retirement, one of the most important should be building our own faith so that when our time comes we are prepared to pass on, move from this life to our eternal life in Heaven, full of peace, happy to sing with the angels, satisfied that we’ve lived a life well lived and absolutely confident that we have placed our faith in the Lord of all creation.

It is to this end that we celebrate the lives of Christian servants who have died before us. There is nothing quite as inspirational as the funeral of a Christian brother whose life was full of good fruit, whose love for God was clear to see in the lives he touched, and whose confidence in God’s eternal promise was never so obvious as in the final days and moments when he eagerly passed from this life to the next. For those friends and family members who witness this life, the testimony will live on forever. There will be tears. He will be missed. The mourning hurts. But there is also joy and faith that we will someday be united again among the angels.