I have just left the bedside of a friend. He is not doing well at all.

It is not the first time I have left the bedside of a friend wondering if I would ever see him again, and I imagine it will not be the last.

There is a haunting story about a wealthy merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to the market place one morning. There the servant saw the figure of death moving among the people. Death seemed to look at him very menacingly and the servant became panic stricken.

He rushed home and begged his master to give him a horse so that he might leave Baghdad to escape death. He wanted to flee to a city called Samaria. The merchant had pity on his servant and gave him his fastest white Arabian horse. And the servant immediately galloped off for Samaria.

Later that day, the merchant himself went to he marketplace where he too saw the vision of death. He approached the figure and asked him why had had stared so threateningly at his servant that morning.

Death responded “that was not a threatening look. It was the look of surprise. I was surprised to see that man in the City of Baghdad. You see, I have an appointment with him tonight, in the City of Samaria.”

The story is troubling in one respect. We know that there are some things we can do to delay the appointment with death. We can fasten our seat belts. We can get proper exercise and eat the right foods. We can stop smoking, and so on. There is a dangerous fatalism that comes through in the story when we confront it head-on. But the basic truth it embodies is a truth! We all, ultimately m, will have to keep an appointment with death.

But we are people of faith. We must keep before us the thought that the same God who gave us life in the beginning, gives us new life in Him that leads to eternal life.

This is my story…