Last Words

End of the Line

Photo by Willy Volk

Synchroblog is a little community of mostly Christian bloggers who write about "post-modern faith and life," posting on a particular subject each month. Bad news though: Synchroblog is on its last legs and this will be its last set of essays ever. So this post is part of the October 2015 Synchroblog  whose theme is, appropriately enough,‘If this was my last blog post, here’s what I would want to say’.

See the list at the end to read everybody else's final missives.

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I haven't been a very good Synchroblogger, I admit. I joined in October 2013 with a post called The Gospel Truth About Social Justice, which actually became one of the more popular posts I've written here. But as encouraging as that was, I've only posted four more: (Jesus Christ Superstar Saved My Soul, Going Home, The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time, and Law of Liberty). And this one if I get it done before the deadline.

This time the writing prompt invites me to imagine that this is my final blog post.  Actually I've written final posts for several blogs so it's easy to tell you what those look like: Nothing. Usually I've written until I got sick of it and just stopped.

I did do a little more with a sister blog of this one. My immortal last words there were:

I can't think of a use for this blog. And really I haven't used it a lot anyway.

Pretty moving, huh?

So I'm going to take our theme as not just my last words for this blog, but my last words ever. What if I knew that 5 minutes from now I would be dead? What words would I write on this page then?

Actually, I had an entirely different set of words I was going to include here. But as I thought about it that way -- as the final few sentences I want to leave the world with after my passing -- different words came to mind. And now they seem like the only thing important enough to say.

As you know if you read Authentic Light a lot, I am rather obsessed with the early Christian movement -- the first 300 or 400 years. I am what is called a Paleo-orthodox theologian. Jerome, the ancient Christian scholar from that era, reports an old tradition (in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, 6.10) about the Apostle John once he got up in years.

When John was too weak to deliver full sermons anymore, he still insisted on being carried into Christian meetings where he would invariably hoist himself up on his stretcher and deliver this short message:

Little children, love one another.

After a while of course this became monotonous and a few of the people asked him why he didn't change it up a little.  His answer was: "This is the Lord’s command, and if this alone be done, it is enough."

I always liked that story, so that is the last thing I want to say in my last Synchroblog: Love one another, the way Jesus loves you.

"Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another."

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This is a list of the Synchrobog contributors for this final month. Read them all and leave a comment!

K.W. Leslie – Synchrobloggery

Glenn Hager – Parting Shot

Clara Mbamalu – What is love?

Carol Kuniholm – A Final Synchroblog

Peggy Brown – Abi and The Last Synchroblog

Leah Sophia – Synchroblog: Creation One More Time

Jeremy Myers – If this were my only blog post, I would invite you to do one thing

J. A. Carter – Last Words

Tony Ijeh – Sharing Jesus

Liz Dyer – Last words about love