A: Joseph Wittig once said, “A man’s biography ought really to begin not with his birth but with his death; it can be written only from the point of view of its end, because only from there can the whole of his life in its fulfillment be seen.” So it is that when we tell anyone of Jesus we must begin with his death. One cannot even begin to understand the life of Christ without understanding his death. It is here at the cross that his biography begins.

Self-sacrifice is the fearsome way to say “self-denial.” But neither word should be seen as making us any grander than we really are. Both words really refer to the way we use our days, how we spend the small coins with which we buy the years of our lives. Anticipating our dying times reminds us, “We cannot get out of life alive,” we must let our impending death teach us how to spend the currency of our days.

And how are we to do it? Well, the apostle Paul said that he was “being poured out as a drink offering.” Indeed, all human life is being poured out, either in self-concern or in service. But it is the judgment of the cross that we should give our lives as a sacrifice to our Lord, who gave his life as a sacrifice for us.