Bucket List

i.e. things to do before you "kick the bucket"

A few weeks ago, we were sitting in the basement of an Arts center at a church membership class. The topic was... well, truthfully I don't remember the topic; all I remember is a story our Pastor shared from the Gospel of John. Now I had heard this passage time and time before, but the point that he made has haunted me ever since and I feel responsible to pass it on.

The passage reads like this:
John 13:1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

The point: Jesus knew that He was going to be arrested and crucified within a matter of hours, yet one of His last acts on earth was to wash the feet of his disciples, to serve them in love and humility. As Christians, we are called to have the mind of Christ, to "put on Christ", and yet I wonder how different the last hours of our life would look compared to those of Jesus. Of course his very death is magnificently different from ours because it was the ultimate sacrifice of His life in order that we may be saved. We may not be able to do that, but we are certainly called to sacrifice. What if on our Bucket List were names of people to serve, rather than places to travel, or family members who need salvation rather than a list of accomplishments to strive for. What if, upon recognizing our human frailty and acknowledging that our life could end in the next instant, we were consumed with love and compassion for our neighbors, our coworkers, our family, our city... and compelled to serve as many as possible, to share the Gospel with as many as possible, to give away as much as possible in order that our last moments on earth would look more like those of Christ and less like a selfish, materialistic, lukewarm Christian? What if my real, actual, tangible goal in life was to live like Christ? What if someone could look at my life and say "wow, God is being glorified through her." What if my "bucket list" wasn't at all about ME, but all about GOD? I hope that I never think of "bucket list" the same way again.