Why…or Maybe When…Would You Give Up Your Life?

Suicide, that is one name for giving up your life.  In previous posts, I have been considering those moments of suicide when someone is so disconnected from purpose, love, and possibility in their lives that they see no way out.  These are the people whose brokenness is so acute that just making it stop dominates their thinking.

But that is certainly not the only time when someone would give up their lives.  Fanatics who strap bombs to their chests and detonate them, we’ve named that committing suicide.  This tactic has come from the impossibility of being able to commit terrorist acts without self-sacrifice.

We also recognize suicide that does not happen by our own hand.  “Suicide by cop” is something I have direct experience with, being there for the family of the boy who did it that way.  It is also in the back of my mind every time I work as a chaplain to our police department.

But there is this whole other realm of giving up your own life that is not ‘suicide’ per se.  It might better be called ‘martyrdom’.  That is the definition given by the Muslim extremism for their suicide bombers.  That is the term for Christians from the earliest days of the church who would rather face death than surrender their beliefs.  One of the victims of the Columbine shooting, a student whose face has appeared in ads in the years after that for holding onto her faith, she is a martyr.

Strip it of its religious implications, and we call it 'heroism', when we praise as heroes those who give up their lives to save others.  The soldier who jumps on the grenade to save his comrades is the basic story-type.  The First Responders who died on 9/11 are such heroes, we speak of them making ‘the Ultimate Sacrifice’.  Even the bible speaks of those willing to give their lives for their friends. 

I, as a parent, would lay down my life for my children.

Jesus himself gave up his own life on our behalf.  His ministry was constructed to push and push and push on the powers that be until they lashed back.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed that cup of wrath pass from his hands, but only if God permitted it. 

Then there is this one; one I do not see a clear name for.  If someone pulled over in their car and pointed a gun at me and told me to get in, I would risk them shooting me on the side of the street than putting myself in their power.  I’ve told my kids to do the same thing.  I know too much of what could happen if I were fully in their power to let them take me.  I lived in Vancouver, B.C., and I fit the victim profile, when the serial killer Clifford Olson was on the loose.  Do we label that 'personal choice'? 

Heroes and criminals, victims and punished, all fall within the scope of those who would give up their own lives.  Do you know where and when you might give up your own life?  Do you know what circumstances are so important that the ultimate sacrifice would be made to preserve them?

This is not an abstract discussion.  This is about life and death.  This is the thing that faith is supposed to help us answer.