What's the point of it all?

“To be human is to ask: what is my life for? To be Christian is to hear: your life is for God.” So concludes philosopher, Dallas Willard. 

At last night’s induction service Bishop Ruth quoted a recent survey of young people showing that the majority, especially girls, long for a meaning in life, a sense of purpose. Our calling as Christians, she continued, is very simply to point them to Christ. 

For what young people do is ask questions, it’s how God has made us – so that we may discover him.  The tragedy is when worn out by life, we stop asking and seek to squeeze as much happiness we can from our situation.  Again to quote another American, Ravi Zacharias: “The greatest tragedy is not unanswered questions but unasked ones.”

As I have blogged before, Jesus himself was always asking questions.  Invariably when asked a question, he would respond with a counter question.  So one young person runs up to him and asks on behalf of a whole generation: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”  (Matthew 19: 17)

If you think about it, no question could be more important and more personal.  This is not an academic exercise, asking out of interest or mere curiosity.  This young man has an urgency, what must I do?   In fact, he has already come to a key conclusion – there’s something he has to do, and more: it’s his responsibility.  The problem is that he doesn’t know what this is.

He understands that he is no passive object to be carried along by the currents and eddies of life, a leaf being carried towards the drain.  It’s urgent – and he wants to know before it is too late.  “There's something I must do – but what is it?” 

In fact, in Mark’s gospel we’re told he runs (no one runs in that heat) and falls on his knees.

We may assume that he has been asking this same question of people in his life, those who would purport to know the answer.  But his body language shows that he thinks that Jesus has the answer despite knowing that Jesus has no formal status or recognised authority.

What Jesus doesn’t do is answer him.  Instead he responds: “Why do you ask me about what is good?”

Clearly Jesus is asking this young man to think, to reflect:  why are you asking me?  What is so special about me that you think I can offer you the ultimate answer, even the meaning of life?

Which brings me, to my surprise, to Monty Python, whose sketches, now 50 years old, I enjoy watching on YouTube.  I have never watched their 1983 film, Monty Python’s Meaning of Life, but the very title would suggest that to ask the question is pointless, altogether absurd in this meaningless universe, a parody. 

According to Wikipedia a character opens an envelope and blandly reveals the meaning of life as trivial nonsense, beginning with the sentence;  “Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then.”

But here Monty is speaking for an entire culture.  There is no point asking the big questions because there are no answers. 

In contrast, Jesus urges the young man to think, to keep on seeking, asking, knocking.  Young people understand that we need to know and persevere, refusing to be fobbed off.  That’s how God has made us, to know why we are here. There’s an answer. 

So Jesus continues, giving the young man information he already has from his synagogue: “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”   

You sense that Jesus is leading him on, which is exactly what happens as the young man perseveres in his questioning:  “Which ones?”

Jesus responds with a familiar list of commandments, “Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, honour your father and mother, and love your neighbour as you do yourself.” The young man said, “I’ve done all that. What’s left?”  He is determined to know. That’s four questions in as many verses. 

Then Jesus gives the answer for which his heart craves. “If you want to give it all you’ve got, go sell your possessions; give everything to the poor. All your wealth will then be in heaven. Then come follow me.”

Amazingly Jesus is inviting this particular young man to be one of his immediate followers, a wonderful opportunity to be with him and learn from him on the road. 

Essentially the meaning of life is a Person.  As my favourite theologian, N T Wright, observes: “If you want to know the meaning of life, you have to look at the man who said, ‘I am the life.’” And more, this Person is the one who comes looking for us as a shepherd searches for his lost sheep. 

Sadly as Matthew  tells us: “That was the last thing the young man expected to hear. And so, crestfallen, he walked away. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and he couldn’t bear to let go.”

To ask for the meaning of life is not some abstract exercise, it invites risk and commitment.  After all so many Christens, like myself, became followers of Jesus as young people, refusing to be fobbed off by easy answers or the gallows humour of the cynical and world-weary. 

The real question, then, is not whether life has meaning but whether we are willing to let go of what holds us back and take the risk of following the One who is Life himself.