Death Can Only Make Me Better: Remembering Tim Keller (1950–2023)
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | Today we say farewell to our friend,
00:00:07.560 | pastor and author, Tim Keller.
00:00:10.260 | Tim passed away in New York City at the age of 72.
00:00:15.480 | He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2020.
00:00:18.540 | Over the years, Dr. Keller graciously appeared
00:00:21.800 | as a guest on this podcast,
00:00:23.120 | leaving us with nine rich APJ episodes
00:00:25.920 | on topics like vocation or work,
00:00:28.640 | and on the themes of prayer and solitude.
00:00:32.240 | I'm thankful for the time that he invested with us.
00:00:35.360 | Cancer for Dr. Keller was an old nemesis.
00:00:38.720 | Back in 2002, he was first diagnosed with thyroid cancer,
00:00:42.480 | a battle he would fight between 2003 and 2004.
00:00:46.000 | God would heal and restore Keller,
00:00:47.720 | but not before thyroid surgery
00:00:49.400 | knocked him out of the pulpit for three months.
00:00:52.520 | A decade later, Keller preached a sermon
00:00:54.900 | on boldness in the face of death,
00:00:57.960 | and recounted what he learned
00:00:59.560 | during that first cancer battle,
00:01:01.520 | opening up about his fears
00:01:03.400 | as he was rolled into the operating room.
00:01:06.120 | In that moment, he caught a glimpse
00:01:07.960 | of something other worldly.
00:01:11.240 | He saw the sheer magnitude of God's glory and God's joy
00:01:14.320 | beyond this world of pain and suffering
00:01:17.600 | and cancer and death.
00:01:19.720 | I wanna play for you a sermon clip that comes to my mind
00:01:24.160 | on this day celebrating his life,
00:01:26.400 | knowing that he has passed into the presence of God
00:01:29.920 | and into God's incredible, unspeakable joy
00:01:33.120 | that the rest of us are left longing for.
00:01:35.560 | Here's Tim Keller in 2013, answering the question,
00:01:38.440 | where do we find courage for life's scariest moments?
00:01:43.020 | - To me, my favorite version of this,
00:01:46.720 | of this example of what real courage is
00:01:52.720 | comes out of this little passage
00:01:54.680 | near the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
00:01:58.760 | It's a place where Sam,
00:02:00.320 | but if you're one of the three or four people in the world
00:02:02.080 | never heard of Lord of the Rings, it's a story.
00:02:04.480 | (audience laughing)
00:02:06.200 | And there's these two little heroes,
00:02:08.600 | and one is the master, one is the servant of the master.
00:02:11.080 | Sam is the servant, and he loves his master.
00:02:13.640 | And they're on this terrible quest,
00:02:15.200 | and at one point, his master is imprisoned in a tower.
00:02:20.840 | Sam rescues Frodo, his master,
00:02:25.160 | largely by screwing himself up and saying,
00:02:29.080 | you are not going to hurt him, I'm gonna do this,
00:02:31.720 | and you can't stop me, I'm the great one, here I come.
00:02:34.800 | And he does rescue him.
00:02:37.920 | Now, after that, they're still on their terrible quest,
00:02:41.320 | and the danger is still very real.
00:02:42.960 | One night, Sam looks up into the sky, and he sees a star,
00:02:47.080 | and this is in the book, not the movie.
00:02:49.520 | And this is what the passage says.
00:02:51.400 | It says, "He saw a white star twinkle for a while.
00:02:56.160 | "The beauty of it smote his heart,
00:02:58.880 | "for like a shaft clear and cold,
00:03:01.640 | "the thought pierced him that in the end,
00:03:04.120 | "the shadow was only a small and passing thing.
00:03:06.480 | "There was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.
00:03:09.600 | "His song in the tower had been defiance rather than hope,
00:03:15.800 | "for he was thinking of himself.
00:03:19.320 | "Now, his own sake, and even his master,
00:03:23.480 | "ceased to trouble him,
00:03:24.460 | "and he fell into a deep, untroubled sleep."
00:03:27.200 | See, the author, Tolkien, is trying to say
00:03:28.860 | there's a difference between defiance,
00:03:31.080 | which you screw yourself up, I can do it,
00:03:33.200 | that's still, in the end, not the courage you need
00:03:36.640 | because you're looking at yourself.
00:03:38.400 | Courage, on the one hand, is not looking at yourself
00:03:41.060 | and banishing fear, no, it's just letting the fears
00:03:44.480 | play their role, and not letting the fears
00:03:46.220 | play too much of a role by looking away from yourself.
00:03:48.760 | Okay, you say, but then to what?
00:03:50.360 | It's even in the text that I just read.
00:03:55.000 | It was defiance, not hope, hope.
00:03:58.440 | "When Paul met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus,
00:04:05.280 | "'Who are you, Lord?' he said, I asked.
00:04:08.660 | "'I am Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you're persecuting.'
00:04:13.320 | "Resurrected Jesus."
00:04:15.280 | Now, when we were going through Acts 9,
00:04:18.000 | the first account of Jesus, of Paul's conversion,
00:04:21.400 | we talked a little bit about this.
00:04:23.280 | When Paul realized that Jesus had been resurrected
00:04:26.440 | from the dead, suddenly everything broke open.
00:04:30.000 | Suddenly the meaning of his death made sense,
00:04:31.960 | and hope for the future made sense.
00:04:34.240 | Because if Jesus Christ really died on the cross,
00:04:37.560 | taking our punishment, and he's now raised from the dead,
00:04:41.160 | now when we believe in him, not only is our sins forgiven,
00:04:44.880 | but now we have incredible hope about the future.
00:04:46.780 | We're gonna be raised, and everything in this world
00:04:50.560 | is gonna be put right.
00:04:51.760 | And there's not gonna be any suffering or death.
00:04:56.440 | That is an astonishing hope.
00:05:00.480 | Now, as I said, the first part of courage
00:05:05.200 | is looking away from yourself.
00:05:07.640 | The world tells you, look at yourself and banish fear.
00:05:09.800 | Okay, secondly, the second part of courage
00:05:11.920 | is looking toward hope, getting a hope.
00:05:16.640 | Real courage is not the absence of fear,
00:05:18.740 | it's the presence of joy.
00:05:20.400 | So much joy that the fear plays its proper role.
00:05:24.880 | Well, how do you get that joy?
00:05:27.960 | Well, before we get that joy, let me just tell you
00:05:29.520 | that there is, I'd say, a second way out there in the world
00:05:34.520 | that people are counseling each other to get courage.
00:05:37.520 | I think the primary way is this sort of self-esteemism.
00:05:42.180 | The primary way that the world tries to tell you
00:05:43.960 | to get courage is just tell yourself, no fear,
00:05:47.240 | you can do it, summons up the blood, and go do it.
00:05:51.040 | I do think that there's an alternate discourse out there,
00:05:53.960 | and it's older, it's more ancient.
00:05:55.680 | It goes back to the East, it goes back to the Greeks.
00:05:58.960 | Cicero, for example, who was one of the Greek,
00:06:02.640 | Greek Roman Stoics, actually, Cicero wrote a very famous
00:06:06.600 | couple of treatises on why you shouldn't be afraid
00:06:08.800 | of anything, especially not death.
00:06:11.720 | You shouldn't be afraid of death, and here's what he says.
00:06:14.640 | He says, "Courage makes light of death,
00:06:17.720 | "for the dead are only as they were before they were born.
00:06:21.720 | "It encounters pain by recollecting that the great pains
00:06:24.200 | "are ended by death.
00:06:26.080 | "Others we can usually control if they're endurable,
00:06:30.800 | "but if they're not, we may serenely quit life's theater
00:06:33.480 | "when the play has ceased to please us."
00:06:36.680 | Now, what he's saying here is, he says,
00:06:38.400 | "There is no reason to be afraid of anything,
00:06:39.920 | "including not of death."
00:06:41.080 | Why?
00:06:41.920 | Because when you die, that's it.
00:06:43.480 | It's like before, you're just not there.
00:06:46.440 | Huh.
00:06:47.480 | And so, what is he saying?
00:06:48.760 | You shouldn't be afraid of anything,
00:06:49.720 | because you tell yourself, I'm gonna lose it all anyway.
00:06:52.840 | No use crying over spilled milk.
00:06:54.320 | When you die, that's it.
00:06:55.880 | You know, I'm enjoying things, but everybody loses things.
00:06:59.320 | What are they doing?
00:07:00.280 | You're still deadening your heart, aren't you?
00:07:02.520 | You're still deadening, there's a way of getting courage.
00:07:06.880 | Not by deadening your heart to fear,
00:07:08.560 | but by deadening your heart to love.
00:07:10.480 | Because when Cicero says, and it's not just Cicero,
00:07:14.480 | I've read it in the New Yorker, I've read it,
00:07:16.480 | so many smart, secular people today say the same thing.
00:07:20.040 | There's no reason to be afraid of things,
00:07:21.280 | no reason to be afraid of death.
00:07:22.760 | When you're dead, that's it.
00:07:23.960 | You know, there's no reason to be afraid of death.
00:07:25.480 | Oh, no?
00:07:26.320 | What is it that makes your life meaningful?
00:07:29.640 | Is it your health?
00:07:31.000 | Partly.
00:07:31.840 | Is it your wealth?
00:07:32.960 | Partly.
00:07:33.800 | Is it your success?
00:07:34.640 | Partly.
00:07:35.480 | But what if you had those things and you didn't have love?
00:07:38.680 | What if you had nobody in your life to love you?
00:07:41.040 | Nobody in your life for you to love?
00:07:43.520 | It would be meaningless.
00:07:44.680 | What makes your life meaningful
00:07:47.200 | is people that you love and people that love you.
00:07:49.920 | That's what makes your life meaningful.
00:07:51.360 | And now you're gonna stand there, Cicero, or whoever,
00:07:55.240 | and you're gonna tell me I should not fear a future state
00:07:59.960 | in which the one thing that makes life meaningful
00:08:02.560 | is taken away.
00:08:03.440 | All love and all loved ones are taken away.
00:08:05.480 | That's the state.
00:08:06.360 | And you're telling me I shouldn't be afraid of that?
00:08:08.640 | Crazy?
00:08:10.280 | Of course we should be afraid of that.
00:08:12.200 | I'm sorry, deadening your heart to love
00:08:15.640 | is just like deadening your heart to fear.
00:08:18.080 | It kind of works partly, but I don't know.
00:08:21.560 | It's certainly not good for your heart.
00:08:23.120 | Here's a better way.
00:08:24.760 | Here's a better way.
00:08:25.880 | George Herbert, 17th century Anglican priest,
00:08:31.800 | incredible poet.
00:08:33.840 | One of my favorite poems in the history of the world
00:08:36.720 | is his little poem called "Dialogue Anthem."
00:08:39.680 | It's a dialogue between a Christian and death.
00:08:43.160 | I'm gonna read the whole thing through.
00:08:45.760 | It won't be that hard to tell when Christian's talking,
00:08:48.560 | when death is talking, 'cause when I'm death, I'll frown.
00:08:51.600 | Here's the Christian, it starts.
00:08:57.080 | Alas, poor death, where is thy glory?
00:08:59.400 | Where is thy famous force, thy ancient sting?
00:09:03.760 | Alas, poor mortal, void of story.
00:09:06.320 | Go and read how I killed your king.
00:09:08.800 | Poor death, and who was hurt thereby?
00:09:13.560 | Thy curse being laid on him makes thee accursed.
00:09:17.040 | Let losers talk, yet thou shalt die.
00:09:22.520 | These arms will crush thee.
00:09:24.760 | And the Christian responds, this is the last part.
00:09:29.840 | Spare not, do thy worst.
00:09:34.440 | You shall only make me one day better than before.
00:09:37.880 | Thou so much worse that thou shalt be no more.
00:09:40.400 | Okay, you wanna be fearless?
00:09:43.840 | Well, you wanna look out there and say,
00:09:46.520 | nothing can really hurt me because of my hope,
00:09:50.880 | because of my infallible hope.
00:09:52.960 | You wanna look out there saying,
00:09:53.840 | even the worst thing that can happen to me,
00:09:55.240 | death, can only make me better?
00:09:56.840 | Spare not, death.
00:09:58.920 | Come, come on.
00:10:00.440 | All you could do is make me better than I am now.
00:10:04.120 | George Herbert has a great line where he says,
00:10:08.880 | death used to be an executioner,
00:10:11.200 | but the gospel makes him just a gardener.
00:10:13.280 | All it can do is plant you,
00:10:15.760 | and you finally come up into the beautiful flower
00:10:18.080 | that you were meant to be.
00:10:18.920 | You're just a seed and death all just plants you,
00:10:21.200 | and then you finally become who you were meant to be.
00:10:25.280 | That's not courage, the Ciceronian way.
00:10:29.120 | Just kill your heart.
00:10:31.160 | Just say, you know, well,
00:10:32.440 | we're gonna lose everything anyway.
00:10:33.600 | Just deaden it.
00:10:34.440 | That's not the Cicero.
00:10:35.840 | This isn't Hercules.
00:10:37.400 | This isn't King Arthur.
00:10:39.680 | This is Jesus.
00:10:40.960 | 'Cause how can you know?
00:10:43.080 | How can you be utterly, utterly sure
00:10:45.040 | that you've got that hope?
00:10:46.520 | How can you say to even death itself,
00:10:48.360 | spare not do thy worst?
00:10:50.080 | I can tell you how.
00:10:51.320 | You have to believe in the only God.
00:10:54.400 | There's a lot of religions out there,
00:10:55.640 | and they all claim God, God, God,
00:10:57.840 | but the only God who has as one of his attributes courage.
00:11:02.360 | Christianity is the only religion that even claims
00:11:07.120 | that our God has the attribute of courage.
00:11:09.680 | Why?
00:11:10.520 | Because when God became Jesus Christ,
00:11:13.800 | he became vulnerable.
00:11:14.960 | But he became human.
00:11:18.960 | And when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane,
00:11:21.080 | when everybody was asleep,
00:11:22.680 | and it was dark, and there was nobody there,
00:11:24.800 | and he realized what he was about to face.
00:11:27.880 | I actually think the Garden of Gethsemane is the place
00:11:30.680 | where you see the greatest act of courage
00:11:32.120 | in the history of the world,
00:11:32.960 | because by the time he got nailed to the cross,
00:11:35.640 | you know, even if he wanted to turn around,
00:11:37.560 | it would have been too late.
00:11:38.520 | There he was, nailed to the cross.
00:11:40.320 | But that night, he could have left.
00:11:43.720 | In fact, he even thought about it.
00:11:45.480 | He says, "My soul is overwhelmed to the point of death."
00:11:51.240 | What do you see in Jesus Christ?
00:11:52.640 | Do you see courage?
00:11:53.920 | You don't see him saying, "Bring it on."
00:11:57.960 | The bloody sweat showed he was feeling fear.
00:12:03.000 | He wasn't saying, "Come on."
00:12:04.880 | What was he doing?
00:12:05.920 | Here's what he was doing.
00:12:07.640 | "We're told all about it in Hebrews 12.
00:12:10.400 | "Therefore, let us run with perseverance
00:12:12.480 | "the race marked out for us.
00:12:14.080 | "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
00:12:15.520 | "the author and perfecter of our faith,
00:12:17.920 | "who for the joy set before him
00:12:21.520 | "endured the cross, scorning its shame,
00:12:23.480 | "and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
00:12:27.160 | "Consider him who endured such opposition,
00:12:29.160 | "so you will not lose heart."
00:12:32.080 | There it is.
00:12:33.840 | What was, he looked away from himself.
00:12:37.080 | And what did he look toward?
00:12:39.080 | Joy.
00:12:39.920 | What was the joy?
00:12:41.120 | The joy of pleasing his father and redeeming his friends.
00:12:45.080 | The joy of pleasing his father and redeeming his friends.
00:12:49.160 | The joy of that enabled him to have courage.
00:12:53.880 | Listen, if you see him courageously dying for you like that
00:12:58.880 | so that you can say to death, "Spare not do thy worst,"
00:13:04.000 | then you can have courage.
00:13:06.200 | One of the few times I needed courage,
00:13:07.760 | God was very happy to give it to me,
00:13:09.360 | and that was very nice.
00:13:10.200 | When I was going under, being wheeled in
00:13:12.680 | for my only cancer surgery, I had thyroid cancer years ago,
00:13:16.040 | and I do remember it was so nice.
00:13:18.680 | I had a sense as I was going in
00:13:22.840 | that I suddenly had this sense that,
00:13:24.720 | you know, the world is wonderful,
00:13:26.280 | and there's just this little,
00:13:27.920 | the universe is this big ball of the glory of God,
00:13:31.720 | and we're just trapped in this little tiny,
00:13:33.680 | I remember it very clearly,
00:13:35.040 | we're trapped in this little tiny speck of darkness,
00:13:39.560 | and even that's gonna be taken away eventually.
00:13:42.520 | And therefore, no matter what happens now,
00:13:44.840 | whatever happens with the surgery,
00:13:46.280 | I'm gonna be all right, my family's gonna be all right,
00:13:49.000 | the world's gonna be all right,
00:13:50.080 | everything's gonna be all right.
00:13:52.120 | It was very nice to have a moment of courage.
00:13:54.760 | Now, I have to tell you, I haven't had many of those moments.
00:13:58.800 | I can't hold onto them, but guess what?
00:14:03.520 | The courageous Jesus Christ holds onto me
00:14:06.000 | and holds onto you, and if you look at him
00:14:09.480 | until the joy of his courageous,
00:14:12.760 | of what he accomplished through his courageous act,
00:14:16.920 | by looking at the joy of what is now there for you,
00:14:19.720 | you'll face whatever you have to face.
00:14:23.440 | - Real courage is not the absence of fear,
00:14:26.040 | it's the presence of joy.
00:14:29.000 | A moving testimony of the sheer magnitude of God's glory,
00:14:32.040 | a clip from Tim Keller's sermon titled
00:14:34.240 | "The Gospel and Courage," preached on May 26, 2013.
00:14:39.240 | Couple years later, Dr. Keller took this story
00:14:41.080 | and wrote it into his book, "Walking with God
00:14:43.400 | "Through Pain and Suffering."
00:14:45.360 | I wanna read his published version as well.
00:14:47.720 | Quote, "There have not been many times in my life
00:14:50.040 | "when I felt the peace that passes understanding,
00:14:52.240 | "but there was one time for which I'm very grateful.
00:14:54.960 | "It was just before my cancer surgery.
00:14:57.160 | "My thyroid was about to be removed,
00:14:59.880 | "and after that, I faced a treatment
00:15:01.320 | "with a radioactive iodine to destroy
00:15:04.000 | "any residual cancerous thyroid issues in my body.
00:15:06.880 | "Of course, my whole family and I were shaken by it all
00:15:10.240 | "and deeply anxious.
00:15:11.960 | "On the morning of my surgery,
00:15:13.160 | "after I said my goodbyes to my wife and sons,
00:15:15.360 | "I was wheeled into a room to be prepped.
00:15:18.680 | "And in the moments before they gave me
00:15:20.800 | "the anesthetic, I prayed.
00:15:22.440 | "To my surprise, I got a sudden, clear,
00:15:25.960 | "new perspective on everything.
00:15:27.920 | "It seemed to me that the universe
00:15:29.520 | "was an enormous realm of joy, mirth, and high beauty.
00:15:34.120 | "Of course it was.
00:15:35.240 | "Didn't the triune God make it to be filled
00:15:37.680 | "with his own boundless joy, wisdom, love, and delight?
00:15:42.200 | "And within this great globe of glory
00:15:44.200 | "was only one little speck of darkness, our world,
00:15:49.200 | "where there was temporarily pain and suffering.
00:15:53.040 | "But it was only a speck.
00:15:56.360 | "And soon that speck would fade away
00:15:57.920 | "and everything would be light.
00:15:59.520 | "And I thought, it doesn't really matter
00:16:01.760 | "how the surgery goes.
00:16:02.960 | "Everything will be all right.
00:16:06.240 | "Me, my wife, my children, my church will all be all right.
00:16:11.240 | "I went to sleep with a bright peace on my heart."
00:16:18.720 | End quote.
00:16:21.080 | I trust in these last days, Tim was given this courage
00:16:26.360 | and this vision again of the magnitude of God's joy
00:16:29.400 | enveloping everything else.
00:16:31.360 | Dr. Keller escaped this speck of darkness
00:16:34.920 | for the high beauty forever beyond the shadow's reach
00:16:37.640 | and entered into the boundless joy of his master
00:16:40.040 | at the age of 72.
00:16:41.720 | Farewell for now, Dr. Keller.
00:16:44.720 | (upbeat music)
00:16:47.320 | (upbeat music)
00:16:49.920 | [BLANK_AUDIO]