In our grief and pain at the death of our John Rogan, Jr., there are many questions that arise in our minds.
HERE ARE SOME IMPORTANT THINGS WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND ABOUT TAKING ONE’S OWN LIFE + The taking of your life is against God’s fifth commandment: “You Shall Not Murder”. It is also against the First commandment to have no other God’s before Him. In suicide a person attempts to circumvent the will and gift of God to live, usurping God’s place and authority. Christians understand that “their” life is not really their own: it is God’s. We are in fact the temple of the Holy Spirit. + As Christians, we are the children of God, having been washed in the waters of Holy Baptism and made holy by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. This is not a theoretical thought exercise. It is an objective reality. We live in a state of forgiveness. We have been “justified” in the sight of God, not by any choice of our own, but by the gracious power and merciful acts of God. + Although we have been justified by Christ and have received forgiveness through the spiritual gifts of repentance and true faith, Christians are yet still sinners. We are “Sinner/Saints”. As sinners our trust and hope in God sometimes shines brightly. Other times it is very dim. But the Bible says that although we are often faithless - God is faithful! As St. Paul struggled with his condition of being a “sinner/saint”, wanting desperately to do good, but always instead doing exactly the opposite, he writes: Rom. 7:21 “So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind
and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” In summary: • John Rogan was a child of God who lived in the “state” of forgiveness. • John Rogan, Child of God, was also a sinner, attacked in his mind and heart by the devil in ways we cannot imagine. • John Rogan, Child of God, confused about life and mired in a hopelessness we will never understand, forgot the promises of God and took his own life. • The Lord God, however, does NOT forget his promises to John. He IS John’s Savior. John is proof again that tragic sorrow and anguish lurk just below the surface of so many of our lives. In these evil days, we desperately need to encourage one another (young and old alike) in the refrain of God’s grace and forgiveness proven to us in the cross of Calvary. Let us shout it to the world. There is nothing more important to keep front and center in our lives. Let us follow the command of our Lord to love each other as He has loved us, to love one another like we have never loved each other before. As John himself confessed: “I am a sinner, but Jesus is my Savior.” Praise be to God for His great mercy on us all.