If you listen to contemporary music, you know that it’s rare to find a song that communicates a theological truth. Country music, however, is different. And why wouldn’t it be when song topics include: fiddles, dogs, Mama, prison, trains, and God? Unfortunately, sometimes the songs communicate only mostly true statements. One of these mostly true country songs that recently came to mind was Tim McGraw’s Live Like You Were Dying. While the song does recommend thinking on one of the four last things, it is not exactly correct in its advice. So we need to practice the old Thomistic axiom: seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish. 

In the song, we hear the story of a man who discovers he has terminal cancer and begins living his life very intentionally. He starts checking items off his bucket list: skydiving, Rocky Mountain climbing, and bull riding (he didn’t make it the eight seconds). His relationship with his wife improves, he reads the Bible more, and goes fishing! Then the chorus hopes that listeners will get the chance to live like they were dying.

While it is true that we should live each day as if it might be our last (Luke 12:20), Christians don’t live like we are dying.

Christians must live like we have already died. 

This does not mean that Christians should walk around as if we were all zombies. Rather, by Baptism, we have all undergone a death to sin.

How can we who died to sin yet live in it? Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (Rom 6:2–3)

Paul is telling us that, through our Baptism, we have been identified with Christ in his death. That is, we have already died to sin. But this death is not merely an end. Rather, this death is a beginning. Because of our death to sin, we are now free to live for God in Jesus Christ.

We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life. For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. . . . If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him. We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him. As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God. Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:4–11)

To live like you have already died is to live for God in Jesus Christ. What does it look like to live “in” Jesus Christ? It means to live as if hidden.

Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory. (Col 3:2–4)

To be hidden with Christ means that our life is carried on with him, always. We don’t need a cancer diagnosis to inform us that every moment is a gift. Every moment is a gift for the Christian because it is another moment in which we can be with the One for whom our heart longs. We constantly raise our minds and hearts to God in the knowledge that he is with us, and we are hidden with him. 

The Christian is never alone, but always with Christ. We may not always recognize this since it seems like we haven’t died (after all, you are still reading this). This life after death to sin is, in some ways, even hidden from our sight. If we live this truth, if we live as if hidden in God with Christ, then we don’t need to go skydiving or try riding a bull to live intentionally and meaningfully. A bucket list exists for those who are about to die and want to live more fully—for a Christian, already having died means we are now living the most fully we can. Doing everything with Christ, hiding with Christ in God, is the essence of living as if you have already died.

✠

Photo by Travis Grossen on Unsplash.