Like so many other people, I came to understand that I was witnessing something deeply significant on the evening of June 27, 2024, as Donald Trump and Joseph Biden met for their fateful debate. Like so many other people, I was aghast at the ways Biden publicly shattered his hopes of becoming a two-term president. I was interested, then, to read Original Sin, the recent book that tells how he came to be on that stage and prove to the world that the rumors were true: He was unfit to run for a second term.
I do not intend to say anything about the authors’ findings as they pertain to American politics, for that is hardly my area of expertise or my forte as a writer. The United States isn’t even my country! However, as I read the book, I found myself pondering a few lessons that go beyond politics and apply to individual Christians and churches. And isn’t this part of the benefit of reading? There is always something we can learn as we read. Let me list a few of my takeaways.
Though there is something tragic about aging, there is nothing shameful about it. On this side of mankind’s fall into sin, aging is a natural and unavoidable process. Yet as prideful and rebellious creatures, we tend to fight its reality and deny its evidences.
In his kindness, God gave us Ecclesiastes 12 to powerfully capture the truth and pathos of aging. He does this through the sorrowful metaphor of a broken-down house. Crucially, this passage is meant to be read, pondered, and internalized by the young so that as they approach old age they will not be surprised by it and, even better, prepare themselves to face it.
The harsh reality is that any of us who live past our thirties will begin to decline physically and most of us will later begin to decline cognitively. Each of us needs to admit to ourselves that a time will come when our capabilities begin to diminish and when we are no longer who or what we used to be. Each of us needs to prepare ourselves to face this realistically. None of us will escape unscathed from the ravages of aging.
People are often blind to their diminishing capabilities. This is perhaps a greater temptation to those who are accustomed to being especially capable or especially powerful. If it is hard for any of us to admit our weaknesses, how much more when those weaknesses were formally renowned strengths? A man known for his physical strength may be prone to deny that his strength has ebbed. A man known for his bold leadership may be prone to deny that he has become less certain and more hesitant. And a man known for his eloquence may be prone to deny that he can no longer communicate with such ease and clarity. We are all prone to pride and this pride will often keep us from admitting what is evidently true about ourselves. Wise people will permit others to speak to such weaknesses and then believe what they are told. Who have you empowered to tell you what’s true about yourself? Who has been given carte blanche to speak hard words into your life? “Faithful are the wounds of a friend…”
People who were close to President Biden observed that his most substantial periods of decline were associated with the death of his son Beau and the addiction and trial of his son Hunter. Though he had always battled a stutter and been prone to awkward verbal gaffes, it was following these heavy blows that the stutter and gaffes began to be accompanied by a greater degree of rambling, memory loss, and other indications of mental decline. Many people who have endured heavy personal trials will attest that on the far side of those challenges they were not the same people they were before—that their bodies and minds never made a full recovery. I expect this is particularly true when the heavy blows come to those who are already well into the process of aging and whose resilience has already declined.
We are all prone to pride and this pride will often keep us from admitting what is evidently true about ourselves.
Do not be surprised if you or people around you are forever scarred by especially sorrowful or traumatic events. Do not be surprised if they accelerate pre-existing declines or begin new ones. We are, after all, weak and finite beings whose bodies, souls, and minds are tightly knit together in such a way that a shock to one may quickly extend to the others.
Let me hand the pen to J.R. Miller to provide wisdom that seems especially apropos, though it was written more than 100 years ago.
Old age has its temptations and perils. It is hard to bear the honors of a good and worthy life, and not be spoiled by them, as they gather about the head when the years multiply. Some old men grow vain when they hear their names mentioned with honor, and when their good deeds are applauded. It is hard to keep the heart humble, and the life simple and gentle when one stands amid the successes, the achievements, the ripened fruits, of many years of struggle, toil, and sacrifice, in the days of a prosperous old age. Some old men become self-conceited, quite too conscious of the good they have done, and the honor which gathers about their head. They grow talkative, especially about themselves and their own part in the achievements of the past. They like to tell the stories of the things they have done.
They are unwilling to confess that they are growing old, and to yield their places of responsibility and care to younger men. Too often they make the mistake of overstaying their own greatest usefulness in positions which they have filled with fidelity and success in the past but which, with their own waning powers, they can no longer fill acceptably and well as heretofore. In this respect old age puts life to a severe test. It is the part of true wisdom in a man, as he advances in years, to recognize the fact that he can no longer continue to carry all the burdens that he bore in the days of his strength, nor do all the work that he did when he was in his life’s prime.
A task that may fall to family and friends is to serve their loved ones by protecting them—protecting them from bringing shame upon themselves through public displays of the very inabilities they may deny. It is possible that the most-remembered moments of Biden’s entire presidency or political career will also be his most embarrassing—the moments when he showed on the world stage that he was not the man he used to be. Those who loved him could have honored him and protected his legacy by guarding him from such shame. In that vein, I have known of pastors who were unwilling to leave the pulpit until the point they shamed and embarrassed themselves in it. How much better would it have been for that man’s family, friends, or fellow elders to preserve his dignity by helping him see that he was no longer capable? Sometimes love needs strong words and a firm grip.
A family friend has often remarked that many Christian leaders write one book too many or preach one sermon too many. In other words, Christian leaders can begin to undo in the end what was so important to them in the beginning. They can taint their legacy by failing to admit the ways in which their capacities are diminishing. Often, they do not realize that their voice has become unduly influenced by others. We often wonder if a man’s final book is as wholly his as were his early books.
A person who is in a position of authority bestows a kind of “second-hand” power to those who are close to him, and that power can be intoxicating to those who have it. In Biden’s case, it became clear that his family and inner circle were willing to allow him to continue in his office because they were unwilling to cede the power, prestige, and privilege they gained from it. This can happen in churches and ministries as well where the people surrounding a man enjoy the benefits they gain from his position and are unwilling to let it go.
Many people were vying to be the next Democratic candidate for the presidency. Many of these people witnessed his decline and understood it was happening, but chose not to speak up or to insist that he step down. Instead of doing the right thing for their party or country, they did what they perceived to be the right thing for them. They stayed silent because they feared they might imperil their chances of gaining the presidency. Loyalty to the system, then, was more important than loyalty to the country or honesty with the man. In that vein, I fear Christians can often be more loyal to an individual or an institution than to the church as a whole—to God’s cause in this world.
The final years of life are meant to be especially fruitful. Yet that fruitfulness is unlikely to be in the same arena as it was earlier in life. Rather, life’s final years are meant to be the time when godly character comes to its fullest and ripest form. Here is a stirring exhortation from De Witt Talmage, who also wrote more than 100 years ago.
Do not retire too early. Like Moses, you may have your chief work to do after eighty. It may not be in the high places of the field; it may not be where a strong arm and an athletic foot and a clear vision are required, but there is something for you yet to do. Perhaps it may be to round off the work you have already done; to demonstrate the patience you have been recommending all your lifetime; perhaps to stand a lighthouse at the mouth of the bay to light others into harbor; perhaps to show how glorious a sunset may come after a stormy day. If aged men do not feel strong enough for anything else, let them sit around in our churches and pray, and perhaps in that way they may accomplish more good than they ever did in the meridian of their life. It makes us feel strong to see aged men and women all up and down the pews, their faces showing they have been on mountains of transfiguration. We want in all our churches more men like Moses, men who have been through the deeps and climbed up the shelled beach on the other side. We want aged Jacobs, who have seen ladders which let down heaven into their dreams. We want aged Peters, who have been at Pentecosts, and aged Pauls, who have made Felix tremble.
A man may have lived in the wide world when he was young and may have had a great influence upon it. But age has a way of making his world smaller and it is the wise man who embraces this reality and gives his final energies to it.
I will give the final word to Archibald Alexander who often prayed that God would protect and preserve him to the end. Here is an excerpt of that prayer which perhaps we should all pray for ourselves and for those we love.
O most merciful God, cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not if my strength faileth. May my hoary head be found in righteousness. Preserve my mind from dotage and imbecility, and my body from protracted disease and excruciating pain. Deliver me from despondency in my declining years, and enable me to bear with patience whatever may be Thy holy will. I humbly ask that my reason may be continued to the last; and that I may be so comforted and supported that I may leave my testimony in favor of the reality of religion and of Thy faithfulness in fulfilling Thy gracious promises. And when my spirit leaves this clay tenement, Lord Jesus, receive it! Send some of the blessed angels to convoy my inexperienced soul to the mansions which Thy love has prepared; and O, may I have an abundant entrance ministered unto me into the Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
