Surviving an Execution
A near death experience makes one think about what is most important in life. Since Jesus survived death, He is worth listening to in this respect.
Upon starting Fyodor Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, The Idiot, I have been reminded of his great insight into the human soul and his unmatched ability to show Jesus’ truth through rich rhetoric. At one stage in the novel, the protagonist, prince Myshkin, tells a story to a group of hard-to-please women. The story came from Dostoevsky’s own life.
In 1849, Dostoevsky was sentenced to death by Tsar Nicholas I for being a part of the Petrashevsky Circle. This was a Russian literary group of progressive intellectuals who were dissidents of the tsarist autocracy.
Dostoevsky and co were staring down the firing squad, bagged and tied, when at the last minute, a messenger interrupted the proceedings with a letter reprieving the prisoners. It turned out that the entire execution was staged as a form of psychological torture.
Dostoevsky then wrote to his brother… “I am being reborn in another form… when I turn back to look at the past, I think of how much time has been wasted, how much of it lost in misdirected efforts, mistakes, and idleness, in living the wrong way; and, however I treasured life, how much I sinned against my heart and spirit—my heart bleeds now as I think of it. Life is a gift, life is happiness, each minute could be an eternity of bliss.”
In The Idiot, prince Myshkin tells the story… ‘He was dying at twenty-seven, a strong and healthy man; taking leave of his comrades, he remembered asking one of them quite an irrelevant question and being very interested indeed in his answer. Then, after he had bidden farewell to his comrades, came the two minutes he had set aside for thinking of himself; he knew beforehand what he would think about: he just wanted to imagine, as vividly and as quickly as possible, how it could be that now, at this moment, he was there and alive and in three minutes he would merely be something – someone or something – but what?’
‘All that he thought he would be able to decide in those two minutes! There was a church not far off, its gilt roof shining in the bright sunshine. He remembered staring with awful intensity at that roof and the sunbeams flashing from it; he could not tear his eyes off those rays of light: those rays seemed to him to be his new nature, and he felt that in three minutes he would somehow merge with them…’
‘The uncertainty and the feeling of disgust with that new thing which was bound to come any minute were dreadful; but he said that the thing that was most unbearable to him at the time was the constant thought, “What if I had not had to die! What if I could return to life – oh, what an eternity! And all that would be mine! I should turn every minute into an age, I should lose nothing, I should count every moment separately and waste none!” He said that this reflection finally filled him with such bitterness that he prayed to be shot as quickly as possible.’
Once the prince finished telling the story, one of the women, Alexandra, then asks him, ‘All this is very laudable, but tell me what about that friend of yours who told you all those terrible things – his sentence was altered, wasn’t it? – which means that he was granted that “eternity of life.” Well, what did he do with that wealth afterwards? Did he count every minute separately?’
The prince replies, ‘Oh, no, he told me himself – I asked him about it – he didn’t live like that at all, and he wasted many, many minutes.’ Alexandra then says, ‘Well, let that be a lesson to you. It seems it’s impossible actually to live “counting every minute separately.” Whatever the reason is, it’s impossible.’ ‘Yes, whatever the reason, it’s impossible,’ the prince repeated. ‘I thought so myself. And yet I somehow can’t believe it…’
Alexandra is correct in saying that it is impossible to live counting every minute separately. We have no chance of truly living life to the fullest. Our feeble efforts will never last more than a few days. We all have graveyards of abandoned dreams and buried inspiration. It is a paradox to suggest that an execution can bring one closer to life, because executions end life.
But there was a man who survived an execution. There was a man who did live counting every minute separately - He wasted none. He turned every minute into an age. He saw life as a gift, as happiness, and He saw each minute as an eternity of bliss. And because Jesus lived like this, with His help, we can too.
At the heart of Christianity is this very paradox. Christ said, “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it”1 and “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”2 This is the Biblical theme that we must die before we live. We must die to sin, to our own desires, and to mediocre lives, before we truly live.
GK Chesterton, the Prince of Paradox, said “Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a god who knew the way out of the grave.”3
Let us give thanks to Jesus because through surviving an execution, He has granted us an eternity of life which can start right now. He was executed so that we could survive the execution which we deserved. We must therefore live like one who has survived an execution.
In the book of Job, the young man Elihu says, “I sinned, and perverted what was right, but I did not get what I deserved. He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I shall live to enjoy the light. God does all these things to a man - twice, even three times - to turn back his soul from the pit, that the light of life may shine on him.”4
Luckily for us, we do not have to go through the trauma of a fake execution to have a greater appreciation of life. Let us take Dostoevsky’s word, and truly appreciate this great life that we all have the ability to live fully. Let us take Jesus’ word, and lose our lives pursuing, serving, and loving Him, for that is where we will truly live counting every minute separately.
That is where we may merge with the light.
Matthew 10:39
John 3:3
The Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton
Job 33:27-30
Thanks for this great post.
While I understand your point, Jesus did die, he did not survive death, he overcame it, and showed us how to also overcome it.
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:" (Heb 9:27)
We will all die, but we will also be all resurrected to life, either in the first resurrection or the second.