This poem was first published in 1806. Wordsworth had experienced many personal blows. His mother died when he was eight years old. He was sent off to boarding school when he was nine. His father died when he was thirteen. In 1795 when Wordsworth was 25, Raisley Calvert, a friend whom he had been nursing, died of tuberculosis. In this poem he is saying that we all sense that life is much more than our present physical existence. In our being we carry memories of the glory of God in whose image we are created and "who is our home."
Jesus, of course, went much further than this. His words aren't a wise person's insightful reflection on life, but a revelation of his Father and his Father's purposes. Jesus was the one who could truthfully claim, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (Jn 14.6).
Listen again to his words, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (vv. 1-3).
From our first moment we had a drive to live and to grow. If this drive seemed impaired, the medical world was rightly concerned and moved into action. And while we live, we are meant to reach our full potential and to live fully to our last breath.
Over twenty years ago we lived in Stanthorpe. Someone had set up a home for severely intellectually impaired children. He didn't want government assistance. He wanted to run it his way. The parents of these children were doctors and lawyers and could afford to pay. The children and young people would sit around a room facing a blank wall, totally unstimulated. "Life is burden enough to us," he tried to tell me one day. "Why should we lay this burden on them?" At the same time, there was, by contrast, a family with a severely spastic girl. They sent out a public appeal for volunteers to come for an hour and help put her through exercises. The aim - to help her develop as far as she could.
We have heard a great deal in recent times about "quality of life". Both abortion and euthanasia are urged on the basis of "quality of life". But life is a precious gift from God. It is a gift to be valued and protected. If we believe in the "value of life", we will do all we can towards enhancing its quality.
Our commitment to palliative care is based on this belief in the value of human life. We are meant to love and nurture those who are still with us - and to do all that is possible to alleviate discomfort and pain.
But we are mortal. This body isn't designed to go on forever. All of us show the signs that it isn't working as well as it used to - we won't go into a catalogue of complaints just now! But the time may come when the doctor tells us that nothing more can be done medically for our loved one. "We will keep your loved one comfortable. But we will not be taking extraordinary means to prolong life."
Paul was a tent-maker by trade. He was able to take needle and thread with him and support himself on his missionary journeys. We can imagine people coming to him and saying, "Paul, I have had a wonderful tent, but it has come to the end of its life. Will you make me a new one?" A tent isn't permanent and our strong UV light weakens the fabric to a point where it begins to tear and can no longer keep the weather out.
Our body, Paul said, is like a tent. It is the means by which we live now, but it won't last for ever. He wrote, "Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands" (2 Cor. 5.1).
As Jesus said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."
We need to live this life - this temporal and temporary life - with an awareness of eternity. As we watch over a loved one whose physical life is drawing in - no longer permitting what they used to do, what they loved to do - look beyond the failing tent you can see, look to God preparing them for something better, eternal. When the parting comes, it is painful. Because we love, we also mourn our loss. We don't "get over" it, but, if we will, God leads us "through" it to the comfort he has promised.
Jesus' disciples were troubled. They could understand why Jesus should be popular, but not these dark clouds of opposition that seemed to be gathering. It made sense that he should be crowned King of Israel, but not that he should be put to death by brutal Roman execution on a cross. "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me."
My mother died in September 1992. She had been suffering increasing memory loss over several years. About eighteen months before she died, she had a stroke and spent most of her remaining time in a nursing home. During the first days in Royal Brisbane Hospital, her vision and hearing were gone on one side, her ability to communicate severely impaired. She thought I was her father (who, by the way, was clean-shaven for all the time I knew him!). She couldn't understand why Dad (who had died some five years before) didn't visit her.
Then one day we found her singing to herself. She had been a very musical person, but her ability to hold any tune was now gone and the words were garbled. We couldn't match it to anything we had ever heard before. We managed to pick the words and then hunted for the music. We found it in the old Sankey's 1200 Sacred Songs and Solos (119 E.A. Hoffmann). It was just the chorus that she sang, but here are a couple of the verses:
I praise him for the cleansing blood:
What a wonderful Saviour!
That reconciled my soul to God:
What a wonderful Saviour!
Humanly, it looked as if she had lost just about everything, as if all that could happen now was the physical end of it all in death. But at that moment we knew that she had it all, that physical death would liberate her from a failing body and leaky blood vessels - liberate her to the life of heaven, to the presence of her Lord, to reunions with loved ones who had gone before...
Don't be worried, Thomas! "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Here is the secret as we live here and now. Here is the secret as we look forward beyond death to eternity - for ourselves and for our loved ones.
Shed your tears, but don't shed them alone. In the valley of the shadow of death, the Lord is with you. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is the way to the Father. He is the way to heaven. Trust him with the life of your loved one.
Trust him with your life - for now and for eternity!
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