Russ Ramsey - Struck: One Christians Reflections on Encountering Death

Scott Sauls

R eflecting on the future of the human race, Anne Lamott said candidly: A hundred years from now? All new people.

Ive always liked reading Anne Lamott for the same reason I like reading Russ Ramseybecause she cuts to the chase and, raw and unfiltered, tells the truth about life. And the truth about life is, at least for now, that its temporary, fleeting, and fading, like a vapor. Because the current mortality rate is one person per every one person, none of us get to ride off into the sunset. At least it doesnt seem that way.

But for those whose personal stories are anchored in the story of Jesus, the threat of death is not a cause for despair. To be sure, it is a cause for momentary grief and sorrow and weeping, but attentive hearts also know that death is a prequel to paradise. The Bridegroom and the garden-city of God await, ready to catch us on the other side with the promise of no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Revelation 21:1-5; 22:1-3).

In the end, death will lose its sting. Because Jesus is risen, we, too, will rise with renewed bodies and perfected hearts, minds, and motives. If we can imagine it (and even if we cant), every single day will be better than the day before. The aging process will no longer be marked by getting older and weaker, but younger and stronger, for infinite days.

This future vision, anchored and secured and irrevocably etched into the pages of Scripture, presents us with a hope that can carry us through many dangers, toils, and snares. Its promise is that for every believer, the worst-case future scenario is resurrection and everlasting life in Jesus. Yes, in the end, thats as bad as it can possibly get for us in Jesusuninterrupted, unhindered, perpetual bliss in the garden-city of God, with a tree in its center that is there for the healing of the nations. The empty tomb affirms that all these things are, and forever will be, trustworthy and true.

But what about now? What about the in-between timethese broken, never-predictable, wild, sorrow-filled, out-of-our-control, afflicted, fallen days in which we live? These are the days that bear hopeful glimpses and shadows of the world to come, but they are also the days that are, as Job the sufferer reminds us, numbered and hard. Its the numbered and hard days that make me thankful for authors like Russ Ramsey, and especially for this masterpiece that Russ, inspired by his writer-hero Annie Dillard, calls Struck . I need the story that Russ tells in these pages, and I need it in the way that he tells it.

Like Russ, I am a pastor whose job it is to help others through their numbered and hard days. Like Russ, I am also a jar of clay, a finite and fallen man, restless and frail, foolish and vulnerable, self-doubting and sometimes doubting of God. Like Russ, I have been anxious and depressed. Like Russ, I have doubted my calling and been through a vocational crisis. Like Russ, I have questioned the meaning of life and begged God to end it all. Like Russ, I have contemplated the inevitability of my own death. Like Russ, I have been involuntarily lifted up by the Creator who, as C. S. Lewis faithfully reminds us, is always good but never safeand have been struck by him.

It is from this place of affliction, this place of being struck, that my heart (and yours?) becomes most receptive and most consciously needful of a story like the one that you now hold in your hands. The events about which Russ writes are not unique, because every person experiences grief and loss and brushes with death. And yet, there is an utter and uncommon uniqueness in the way that he tells this common story, because in the telling he offers us a new set of eyes and a glimpse of an inner life that is shaped by the world to come. He helps us, as N. T. Wright would say, to imagine Gods future into our present sorrows and losses, and in the imaginingin finding our place in the story that is trustworthy and truefind truth, beauty, meaning, and hope.

In the beautiful telling of his own brush with death and the process of recovery, Russ shows us, in a most moving and lovely and hopeful fashion, what it means to find joy in the sorrow, beauty in the ashes, light in the darkness, intimacy in the fear, love in the losses, water in the wilderness, music in the sorrow, and yes, even life in the dying.

Russ, thank you for telling us the truth about life. Thank you for telling the truth in a most tender way. You are my friend and colleague, but you are also much more than this. You are a man who, in a most artful and thoughtful and heartfelt fashion, helps me see Jesus. May God give us all eyes to see as you do.