moses

Things to Say When We Die, AKA, “Gray Hairs in Hades”

/ Cassidy S. Cooley / Leave a comment

I’ve been reading through The One Year Chronological Bible as published by Tyndale House (NLT). It’s been revelatory–listening to the Word has proven to be so much more impactful than I ever realized. It’s amazing how when you hear something, vs. when you read something, you pick up so many little nuances.

David gives his formal last words and final instructions to Solomon in 1 Kings 2:1-9. In this passage, he’s handing the throne over to his son during yet another arduous time in Israel. A different son had laid claim to the throne; Bathsheba came to David, as did Nathan, to tell him what was going on. David called his Solomon in and gave him a short speech that took a whole 8 verses…and verses 5-8 are pretty vengeful.

Meanwhile, when Moses knew his time had come, he spent 5 weeks giving his final speeches, handing his authority to Joshua, stressing the importance of keeping the commandments and the Law, and by begging the people of Israel not to forsake the path God had laid out for them…Deuteronomy is pretty much taken over by this monumental event, & Moses finishes it up by literally climbing up a mountain and dying. Pretty epic, if you ask me.

I’m struck by the comparison. Everyone thinks of King David as being this “man after God’s own heart,” yet his last words on this earth were vengeful: “And there is also with you Shimei the son of Gera, the Benjaminite from Bahurim, who cursed me with a grievous curse on the day when I went to Mahanaim. But when he came down to meet me at the Jordan, I swore to him by the Lord saying, ‘I will not put you to death with the sword.’ Now therefore do not hold him guiltless, for you are a wise man. You will know what you ought to do to him and you shall bring his gray head down with blood to Sheol.” (Deut. 32:8-9). MY DUDE, YOU JUST TOLD YOUR KID TO TAKE OUT AN OLD MAN.

And then David died! Just like that!!!! WHAT THE WHAT?!?!? “Oh, son, be Strong and show yourself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord your God (Deut. 32:1), yadayadayada AND GO KILL THAT OLD GUY WHO DID ME WRONG.”

ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?

Meanwhile, here’s Moses: “Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph! Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs.” (Deut. 33:29) Then God shows him the Promised land, and he dies. The end.

I don’t really have any deep, spiritual insights here, other than the fact that I am floored at the juxtaposition of the death speeches. If you would have asked me how I thought David would leave this planet, I would have probably said something like, “singing a Psalm,” and for Moses, something like, “swinging a tablet,” I don’t know, I mean, if I’d never studied it before. And I have–but for some reason, hearing it made it really stick out to me–they’re completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Moses is blessing his people; he’s challenging them, reminding them of the promises and the miracles, and he’s handing off his position after 120 years on this earth and a life that’s spanned a tremendous breadth of hope, heartache, and of an endless pursuit of holiness. He made mistakes; he got frustrated and angry, and he was fiery. He was a passionate defender of the hope he had, & he never stopped being the voice of the Father for the errant child of Israel. He loved his people and he loved his God without question…yet he never stepped foot in the Promised Land while on this earth.

David is looked at so often as a man of great honor…He’s a regular guy who became a king…a shepherd, a musician, a warrior, a refugee, and then a king. God used him in so many ways, but he also struggled with womanizing, anxiety, entitlement, etc. He was (like me and you and everyone else) a total mess. David is venerated…but why?

The fact that David lived his life the way that he did & ended it the way that he did, clearly shows a man who was flawed–proud, vengeful, and unforgiving–but yet, look at how God used him throughout! He uses broken vessels to change history…Our Messiah came through his line. What greater human honor could someone have bestowed on them?!?!

The story of Moses has always resonated with me. When I was 15, I had an argument with God over a promise I have yet to see fulfilled. I remember Him taking me to the story in Exodus 4 and telling me, “Who made your mouth?” It was then, for the very first time, that I took a look at the issues Moses faced. Whether it was crippling anxiety, a speech impediment, messed-up teeth; we don’t know the specifics of why Moses felt inadequate to speak in front of people; we just know that he did, and that God reminded him of Who. He. Was. It could have been neurodivergence, Tourette’s, a facial deformity–we don’t know. Moses was terrified. He felt inadequate…but God used him for amazing things that only He could have done.

Moses wasn’t a saint, either–he straight-up killed a dude for beating a Hebrew slave. Sure, it was a righteous anger but it was still murder, & it was wrong. He had a temper (& a fiery one at that!!!!). He went from being afraid to speak to leading over a million people through the desert and when it was his time to go, he, as the kids say, “left no crumbs.” FIVE WEEKS?!? His farewell speech lasted five weeks!!! From a dude who was afraid to speak in public!!!! Tell me God can’t break off fear and anxiety!! He may have to lead you through a desert to do it, but He can do it!!

These two death-tales have had me thinking about what I’d say if I knew my time was coming (it’s not morbidity. It’s a fact. Everybody dies.). I have faced my own mortality a few times (weirdly, I’ve never really taken it seriously) between bouts of heart failure, near-drowning, car accidents–it’s pretty amazing I’m still alive. But if I knew my time was coming–if you knew your time was coming–would you make your last words a commission of vengeance like David? Or would you challenge people to remember how far you’ve all walked with God, and how far He has brought you?

When my daughter passed away, choosing the verse on her tombstone was hugely important to us. We knew it would represent so much–maybe not how we felt at the time, but we knew we wanted a verse that would give us hope & point us to our Father every time we saw it. We chose I Samuel 2:2 “There is none holy like the Lord; for there is none besides You; there is no rock like our God.” It was important because it was her namesake; Hannah was named after the story in the Bible, and Hannah is who sings and prays this to the Lord after she has Samuel and dedicates him to God. She placed her baby in God’s house, and she praised the Lord as she left. That’s an incredibly difficult thing to think about…but our Hannah was with the Lord, and what else could we do without her, but to trust Him? He IS holy, right? He IS our Father, and He DOES love us. These words are in bronze, etched for the world to see. She is His…and I’m reminded every time I put flowers out, that we will all be together some day. That verse was put there as a challenge to us, as a reminder for us; it’s not there for us to grieve. It’s there because it’s true, He is real, & He is our HOPE.

For me, I could go either way. There are a few people I wouldn’t mind commissioning revenge on with my last breath, LOL–okay, not seriously–but the more I think about them, the more I reflect on my struggles with forgiveness and the more I realize I’m not yet ready to look my Savior in the eye. How can I be angry, when He has forgiven me of so much? I can’t keep these grudges. I’m sorry, King David–I’m not commissioning my kid to chase down a former manager or anything, even if the thought makes me smile like the Grinch. 🙂

I hope more than anything, if I have the ability to know my end is coming, that when I leave this earth that I do so like Moses–maybe not with like, 5 weeks of speeches, but maybe more like, 20 minutes to call people, tell them I love them, remind them Jesus loves them and that I’m okay, and to challenge them to stay on their journey of walking with Him. I’d hope I would maybe write something poignant, maybe get that novel off of my chest, and perhaps leave a legacy of quirky creativity and the stories of a life lived for Jesus and with Joy.

But maybe, just maybe, I’ll make it to the ripe old age of geriatric saltiness, and I’ll combine the two examples…I’ll challenge people with a final speech of spiritual maturity, calling them out to Love Jesus and Love People with the hearts we’re told to have…and also tell them to borrow that proverbial beer truck & run a few idiots over…bwahahahahaha….

We think about Moses like a grumpy old man with a smite button, ready to slam some tablets down; we think of David as a gentle shepherd bout, or as a sensitive-hearted worshipper. I think we have it backwards, and I think their farewell benedictions prove my point.

Moses was a weathered man who knew he was deeply flawed, yet he trusted God and he challenged his people thru his last breath. David gets labeled as a special kind of holy, because he’s called a “man after God’s heart…” but I think he gained that description based on the fact that he always came back when he slid away from the Law and the calling of God. He never abandoned his faith, but he never let go of his anger at those who betrayed him. He didn’t have the freedom he should have had in death, & he challenged his son to pick up his grudges and to carry out his vengeance instead of trusting God to handle it. David certainly sounds “smite-ier” when you think of it like that.

Then again…when you look back over Moses’ final speech in full, there are definitely some “smite” moments in there, so don’t think I skipped those parts. 🙂 I’m more taken aback by the length and content of Moses’ full speech verses David’s 8 verses, as well as the very last parts of what Moses says, verses what David says, along with our regular conceptions of both men. I hadn’t really thought about it before yesterday, & I think I’m going to dig into this topic next year at some point.

Meanwhile, should I get hit by said proverbial beer truck before my next erratically-written blog, I will share with you one of my favorite verses which, if I wasn’t hoping to be cremated, would go on my headstone or would hopefully be my last statement. It was my Senior verse in high school, and it has remained with me as a “milestone verse” in my walk with God:

“Oh Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You and praise Your Name, for in perfect faithfulness, You have done many things; things planned long ago.” –Isaiah 25:1

Honestly, though, my last words will probably in all reality be like those of Robert Charles Towery, who said:

“I love my family.

Potato, potato, Potato.”

Leviticus, Media Mockery, & Why Are We Still Putting Up With This?!?

/ Cassidy S. Cooley / Leave a comment

Sacrilegious is never funny.

Mocking the “god” of any other culture will get you eviscerated, cancelled, or worse…but mocking Jesus Christ makes you a social media star? Especially around the holiest of seasons, as we celebrate His death & resurrection? How is that allowed?

In studying Leviticus, the weight of salvation stands out heavier than ever before…When you think about the different sacrifices that were made: Burnt offering, Grain offering, Sin offering, Guilt offering, Ordination offering, Peace offering—when you think about the cost of such offerings, even in just the financial sense….When you think about the mental toll it takes, to be a priest and to slaughter animals at an endless rate, to wake and sleep in the surroundings of blood & incense….when you think about the continual efforts of the people, to monitor thoughts and actions, to regulate when a sacrifice needed to be made, and the never-ending list of sacrifices to be made….

And you think about how the Messiah ended it all in the holiest of afternoons….

He carries the weight of the sacrifice, then—2,000 years ago—and now, and forever.

He carries the burden of the continual accountability, the weight of guilt and shame, the oppression of never being able to kill enough to completely wipe the slate clean. He is ENOUGH. He wipes the slate clean with His own Blood, with His Death & Resurrection.

The Cross was never a scrawny white guy held up on two popsicle sticks by some thumbtacks. The Cross was about The Innocent…the very Son of the Most High God…Who was brutally murdered by a people that refused to recognize Redemption in any other presentation than the blood-covered altar of the Temple.

The Cross is about freedom…it’s about Eternity. It’s about drawing us into Him, about allowing us into the Holy of Holies, free and cleansed of all known and unknown sin, without an animal sacrifice and without having to go through another human being as our gateway to the Throne. The Cross bridges the gap between the Outer Courts to the Inner Courts, and puts us on a freeway to kneel and worship with the elders, praising God in a chorus that never stops, because it CAN’T stop, because HE IS WORTHY.

Our relationship with God is not something to be mocked, and it isn’t something to take casually. He’s not “Buddy Christ,” and although He is most definitely our best of friends, He is still SOVEREIGN, and He is HOLY. Time spent with Him is HOLY. This casual attitude of mocking Him…of allowing the news and the media, of allowing movies and music to take His imagery and to twist it in such abominable ways is inconceivable. Conversely, our perception of Satan and all that he brings to the table is also not to be mocked or taken casually, as spiritual matters are serious. Degrading them to a form of blasé entertainment is utter foolishness (which is exactly what Satan wants us to do—the less-seriously we take him, the less seriously we take Jesus, and he’s happy with that).

I caught myself rolling my eyes at recent media outlets that were celebrating a social media star who is blatantly glorifying Satan in his latest video. He’s proud of himself—he says this is how he celebrates his “freedom.” He’s in more chains than he will ever know, until he’s facing eternity…and I rolled my eyes. Like, how am I not weeping over this? How am I not grieving in my spirit over this? I’m so calloused to the media portrayal of spiritual matters that I am reduced to rolling my eyes like a bored teenager, as opposed to crying out to God for a nation that is spiritually bankrupt. I’m disappointed in myself–have I gotten so used to skimming headlines, that I fail to allow them to penetrate my convictions?? How have we fallen so far as a nation, that there isn’t a huge moral outcry to shut this kind of imagery and glorification down??

The further in I go into the Old Testament, the more my salvation means to me…the more I realize my state as a human being that will never be worthy on her own. I so desperately need my Jesus, and I need Him not just as my Best Friend, but as my Holiness. I want to be cloaked in His holiness, to have Him take out the things that make me forget Who He is, and replace them with whatever makes me grow closer to Him. I want the mockery that makes my eyes roll right now, to break my heart until I see His face. I want to understand WHY His sacrifice means so much, not just on the surface, but on a deeper level.

I’m so flawed. I’m such a dichotomy—my mouth needs its own separate redemption, I swear—but in my heart of hearts, I want Jesus, and I want Him to be the center of my life. It’s a never-ending journey, and I’m thankful that He lets us be on it…that He’s with us every step of the way.

Sacrilegious is NEVER funny…but even to those who would openly mock Him, Jesus says, “Come.” He responds to the haters with Love—He did it 2,000 years ago as He was dying on the Cross, and He still does it, today. He says, “Come, and be with Me in My Father’s House.” He invites us to love, and to be loved in a way we don’t deserve, but that He freely gives. He’s Jesus, and He loves you as you are….and He loves you to who He sees you becoming as you grow in Him.