My Bucket List

One night last winter, at a dinner party at a friend’s home, one of the guests came up with this interesting conversation starter: What would you say is on your personal bucket list?

He was referring to the recent movie, The Bucket List, in which Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, two men who are simultaneously diagnosed with terminal cancer, jet off to do all the things they’ve always wanted to do before they “kick the bucket.” They visit the pyramids; drink champagne in France; gamble in Hong Kong; jump out of an airplane; and generally risk their necks and blow a great deal of Nicholson’s money in an attempt to feel alive before life ends.

“So what is on your personal bucket list?” I was the first to answer the question. I should have been more patient. The first thing that came to mind, for some reason, was travel. I did a quick inventory of the places that I have been privileged to visit, and thought about the places I’d still like to see for myself. I mentioned a few countries and a few islands – China, New Zealand, the Galapagos, and the like.

Other guests were stumped. “I’ve guess I’ve never thought about this before,” said one of them. Still another guest answered thoughtfully, “I don’t believe I need to visit more places, or pursue more adventures. Before I die, I would like to help enrich the lives of other people.”

Rats. That’s what I meant to say. Is it too late for me to take back my answer?

I was thinking about The Bucket List a few weeks ago when I visited Petra, a spectacular series of ancient tombs cut into red sandstone in the Middle Eastern nation of Jordan. Petra was voted last year to the “new” list of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is perhaps best known as the dramatic backdrop where Harrison Ford and Sean Connery ride horses in the closing scenes of The Last Crusade. You can even get a coffee mug or a bullwhip at the Indiana Jones Snack Bar. I only wish I were making that up.

Nevertheless, you can visit all the wonders and swim on all the beaches and climb all the mountains in the world. But if your final goal is self-fulfillment, you will never come to the end of your bucket list. There will always be something else that another somebody thinks is worth seeing. Human selves cannot ultimately be fulfilled through travel, or adventure, or risk-taking.

Nor is self-preservation a worthy goal. Don’t get me wrong. I suppose I maintain a sort of negative bucket list – things that I definitely hope don’t happen before I die. I hope I never have to say the words, “my urologist.” Nor do I cherish being audited by the IRS. I hope I never receive the medical diagnosis that Ted Kennedy received a few days back.

But I am not the primary scriptwriter for my life. And one day my heart is going to stop beating, regardless of my most strenuous efforts to the contrary. As George Bernard Shaw memorably put it, “The statistics on death are very impressive. One out of one people die.”

If self-fulfillment is a dead end, and if self-preservation is rendered meaningless by our own appointment with the grave, what is worth doing with the remaining days of our lives? The apostle Paul boldly opted for self-abandonment. Consider these words from Philippians 3:12-14: “I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward – to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back” (The Message).

The astonishing thing is that Paul wasn’t on a whirlwind global tour, collecting experiences and souvenirs, when he penned those sentences. He was stuck in a windowless prison. Yet he was vastly more content that the majority of us affluent moderns who are wondering how many more adventures it will take to bring us happiness.

I hope I get another chance to answer the question, “What is on your personal bucket list?” My answer won’t be a string of things I hope to do. Before I kick the bucket I very much hope to become the kind of person who loves God and loves others with such abandon that Jesus’ prayer – “may your kingdom come and your will be done” – can be at least partially answered through my life.

Sacred Sites

I recently returned, along with 30 other ZPCers, from a 16-day study trip to the Holy Lands. It was a significant adventure and learning experience and I’m sure our stories will be spilling out for weeks to come. Our stops included biblical sites in Egypt and Jordan, but most of our days were spent in the nation of Israel.

Modern day Israel is an astonishing place. It is a little more than one-third the size of Indiana, yet boasts three times as many people. Israel’s terrain includes a 9,000 foot peak that is at least partially snow-covered year-round; the Dead Sea, which at –1290 feet is the lowest place on the surface of the Earth; modestly high waterfalls; tropical vegetation; evidence of recent volcanic activity and recurrent strong earthquakes; a beautiful strip of Mediterranean coastline; and large, thriving cities where high tech industries are leading the world (cell phones and the Wii were pioneered near Tel Aviv). Yet something like half the land is wilderness – unforgiving, waterless, monotonous stretches of sand and rock.

Sociologically, Israel is even more diverse and complex. Three world religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) claim Jerusalem as a spiritual center. Our group ventured multiple times into the West Bank territories, which might best be described as a country-in-the-making. Today Palestinians (whether Muslim, Jewish, or Christian) are crowded together under the armed gaze of Israeli soldiers. One day the West Bank may become a Palestinian homeland. But as we witnessed the fireworks celebrating Israel’s 60th birthday as a nation, that day seems far off.

Most outsiders who come to Israel hope to encounter the so-called sacred sites. This is, after all, the Holy Land. It’s startling to grasp the tiny scale on which the Bible’s stories were played out. Almost the entirety of the Old and New Testament narratives took place in an area smaller than the distance from Indianapolis to Chicago.

Typically, Christian visitors hope to take some of the sacredness home with them. There appear to be four strategies to make such a thing happen. First, you can take pictures. Pose yourself in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the only remaining façade of the magnificent limestone block platform that supported the Jewish temple during the time of Jesus. Or photograph the ruins of Jericho, where the book of Joshua tells us that the walls collapsed after the Israelites circled the town and blew rams’ horns.

Second, you can experience the land for yourself. Go to the top of Masada, where more than 900 Jewish insurgents committed suicide rather than surrender to the Roman army. Cross the Sea of Galilee in a boat and look at the clusters of villages and fishing communities that remain to this day. Take a camel ride to the top of Jebel Musa, thought to be the Mt. Sinai where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Through it all you can take home sunburn, aching muscles, and extraordinary new insights into biblical texts.

Third, you can do what most Christians assume they are going to do when they visit Israel: Walk where Jesus walked. But this is far easier said than done. The land has undergone changes during the last 2,000 years. Modern Jerusalem is 50-60 feet above the street level of the time of Jesus. Nevertheless, when the southern steps of the Temple Mount were excavated a few decades ago, archeologists were able to say with certainty that “Jesus was here.” These are the famous Rabbis’ Steps where teachers came to proclaim their messages. Jesus probably stood on those stones hundreds of times.

Our intrepid guide, Dr. Jim Martin of Bible World Seminars, likewise took us along the Via Maris, the all-important trade route of antiquity that still winds its way amongst the western hills of Galilee. It was moving to realize that Jesus almost certainly followed this path on thousands of occasions.

Fourth, you can take something with you. Souvenir stands abound, of course. You can buy an ancient coin, pick up an interesting rock, or prove that you’ve been to Bethlehem by buying the T-shirt. Others lean down and fill a bottle with Jordan River water. Actually, all you really have to do is run your tap at the hotel, since every drop comes from the Jordan River and/or the Sea of Galilee.

You can do any one of those things, or all four of them. But in they end they are fairly trivial. That’s because there’s nothing inherently sacred about the sacred sites in Palestine.

Yes, God did amazing things in that part of the world. And Israel constitutes most of what the Bible calls the Land that was first bequeathed to Abraham in Genesis 12. But now God is doing amazing things in every part of the world, in fulfillment of Jesus’ Great Commission to take the good news to every country and ethnicity on the planet.

One on extraordinary occasion, God spoke to Moses through a burning bush in the Sinai wilderness. But Moses didn’t hold prayer meetings at that site every weekend after that (even though modern Christians do). The Spirit, quite simply, had moved on. In truth, the most important thing available in the Holy Lands is the Promise – the Bible’s Promise, from Genesis through Revelation, that those who trust Jesus the Messiah can experience an entirely new kind of life and help advance God’s kingdom on earth.

The best news is that you don’t have to travel to Palestine to obtain the Promise. You don’t have to experience the airline hassles, the jet lag, or the interminable security checkpoints. Every sanctuary, every home, and every street can become a sacred site where the voice of God is heard. The most sacred thing about the sacred sites has already come and gone – gone to wherever you happen to engage God in trust and prayer.

Yes, it’s fun to display pictures of Petra and Bethlehem and to say, “I was there.” But the real experience of the Holy Lands is one of the heart. Because of God’s grace, that’s an adventure available to anyone.