A Good Life, A Good Death
A reflection on 2 Maccabees 6…
Eleazar was in trouble. Eleazar was an old man, a scribe, a person who held a high position and was respected among the Jews. And, he was living at a time when ”the king sent an Athenian senator to compel the Jews to forsake the laws of their ancestors and no longer live by the laws of God…”(v1) Eleazar was being required to eat “swine’s flesh” upon threat of death.
Among the oppressors were those sympathetic to Eleazar. They encouraged him to stash a little of his own meat in his pockets and only pretend to eat the pork, but really eat his own meat. In this way he could avoid being executed. But Eleazar was a man of integrity.
“Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life,” [Eleazar] said, “for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty. Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.” (V24-28a)
What a great example of living with integrity and finishing well. What perspective he had on life and death, on faithfulness in the midst of extreme hardship. What understanding he had of himself, of other people and of God. Having been faithful into his nineties, why would he choose even the appearance of unfaithfulness (while still technically being faithful)? It was not only those he would be trying to fool who were watching him, and he was very aware of that. There were vulnerable ones watching also, and there was himself, he would know and would have to live with his own deception, and then there was God—the Almighty would know.
Is this in sharp contrast to our current practices in much of the Church? Are we trying to walk a line sometimes? Are we trying to appear the same as our culture but not be? Pretense.
Eleazar is expressing something I sometimes try to articulate in Spiritual Direction. To live with the integrity of our deepest, most Godly, most genuine, most essential selves will make us different than the world. It will afford us the deepest inner peace, and we will actually go through our lives easier and with more contentment within ourselves. Our inner lives will be lived-out with the least pain and the least anxiety, the most assurance, the deepest groundedness and stability.
At the same time, however, the lives we live from our more shallow selves, closer to the surface, will be much more painful. If we walk with the kind of integrity Eleazar chose, we will be distinctly different from most of those around us. There is undeniably profound loss in that, and with loss comes pain and grief. This is very real, and often very compelling. We long to fit in, to be liked. We want to be invited to the parties. Though living in a way that satisfies those shallow desires is more immediately comfortable, it leaves us at odds with ourselves. No matter what we gain on the outside, we are left with loss of that deep inner peace.
We, like Eleazar, do well to keep our focus on the more important, more lasting things. We must listen to our deepest longings and allow ourselves to be compelled by the profound and abiding peace that comes with knowing who we are and by moving through life as our truest selves.
We must learn, as much as we can, that even when we are functioning from those more shallow places where the majority of life happens, we can face the pain and choose to live from that deepest place.
All told, we will be choosing the path of less pain and greater peace. We will be choosing reality over pretense, that which is lasting over that which is fleeting, what truly matters over what ultimately will not.
