To Have Had and Lost by Brady

With the season finale of Lost being tonight, I think they are going to address a fundamental question of life that many people seem to be asking today. That question is, “Is it better to have something and lose it or not have it at all?” Kate has already asked this in the previous episode when she asked Jack if he was willing to change the future plane crash and not meet her or anyone else from Oceanic flight 815 at all.

What is interesting is that Coldplay and Jay-Z ask the same question in Coldplay’s EP called “Prospekt March.” Jay-Z says the line, “And the question is, is to have had and lost, Better than not having at all?” I would say this is more than a philosophical question that has no answer; rather, I see it as a spiritual matter that determines the way you see the world.

I believe that Christianity offers a way to view the world which allows for suffering because of one intrinsic human quality: love. The world of “religion” is turned upside with one verse from the Bible: “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16) John goes on to say in verses 20-21, “If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” If you are a follower of Christ or believer in God, this is not really a question for you at all. The answer every single time must be, “Yes, it is better to have had and lost.”

C.S. Lewis addresses this same question after suffering the sorrow of losing his wife, Joy. “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

I know several people going through searing pain of loss right now. I have family members that have experienced deep loss of husbands, fathers, and children. I personally have experienced that pain as well. But to be Christian is to be willing to love even though you will experience the pain of losing that which you love. Christians (as my pastor James points out, Christians means “little Christs”) are reflections of God in that Jesus is the embodiment of this principle. He had infinity and took on finitude. God could have forced us to follow him, but He chose relationship and freewill instead. We, in turn, are forced to make a similar choice each day: Do we continue to love those people and things that will ultimately hurt us, or do we lock ourselves up in an airtight casket that is impenetrable hoping to avoid the pain of this life? I don’t know what the characters of Lost or Jay-Z will choose, but I would say “Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”