Ex-Suicide

November 21, 2011 — christian perspective, suicidal thoughts., video biography, wages of sin is death, walker percy

I have been thinking about a phrase I heard the other day… It is a quote from an author, whom I will admit I have never read and, before I had seen a video biography about him on PBS, I had never even heard of. His name is Walker Percy, and one thing I walked away with as his biography came to end was the phrase he used to describe himself… “I am an ex-suicide”.

Ex-suicide…

Now I want to begin my reflection with a disclaimer. I am not suicidal. Please don’t send me frantic emails or call me wanting to shake me out of some deep depression. As a matter of fact I am not remotely depressed. Which is quite possibly why I am so intrigued by this quote.

I think this term has all sorts of beautiful implications about the way we live our lives especially when viewed through lenses of a Christian perspective, considering how we view the implications of sin in our lives.

I want to pause and bring up something a friend had written to me about the topic… His comment was based on the fact that suicide when completed is permanent and thus there is no return from that state. His recommendation was to use the term ex-suicidal but I fear that the beauty of the phrase is lost in this correction after all when I see ex-suicidal I imagine someone who has battled deep depression and suicidal thoughts and has overcome them. This then is not what I mean by the term ex-suicide and therefore ex-suicidal does not work as a replacement term.

Being an ex-suicide implies making a choice… The choice is choosing the alternative to suicide. The choice of suicide is death, but it also implies that death was chosen by the one who dies. To be ex or no longer death means to be life. Which concludes that someone who is an ex-suicide has chosen life.

This makes for an interesting relationship between a person and sin. Scripture certainly makes a point to tell us that that “the wages of sin is death”(Romans6:23 ESV) Which means that each time we choose sin it results in death. So each time we sin we are in a way committing suicide, perhaps not in a literal sense but more so in the figurative sense.

Christ offers freedom from sin which means we are offered an alternative to suicide. In His letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 5:1 ESV) The yoke of slavery he is referring to is that of sin in our lives. Paul is reminding us that we have an alternative choice and that choice is to choose Christ or sin.

To become an ex-suicide means simply that we choose Christ. It is not some complicated process, but simply a choice to experience Christ and his love over our choice to sin.  We are constantly bombarded with this choice  between Christ and sin, and have the ability in Christ to turn from sin… from death… from suicide… To choose Christ, to choose love, and through him receive the fullness of life. To become a people who are truly alive. To receive the good news that is knowing that Christ died so that you do not have to, that he loves to show us how to love, and that he lives to show us how to live.

To be an ex-suicide.

“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” (Ephesians 3:19 NLT)