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Here are extracts from a heart-crushing suicide note:

“I was scared of getting pregnant but I gave myself completely. The pain you have caused me everyday has destroyed every bit of me, destroyed my soul. I can’t eat or sleep or think or function. I am running away from everything. All I wanted was love. I did everything for you. I was working for us. But you were never my partner. My future is destroyed my happiness snatched away from me. You destroyed my life. The Goa trip was my birthday present but even after you cheated I still spent on you. I aborted our baby when it hurt me deeply. You promised me once we made it to one year we would get engaged. All you want in life is partying, your women and your selfish motives. All I wanted was you and my happiness you took both away from me.…”

Reportedly, those are actual lines from the suicide note of Bollywood starlet Jiah Khan made public by her mother Rabiya. Jiah was an American-born actress who was raised in London. In this note, Jiah was talking about her boyfriend, Suraj Pancholi, at whose home she reportedly stayed, in what was her last weekend of her life before she killed herself on Monday night. Jiah’s Twitter bio suggested that she wanted to see life through her rose-colored glasses. Seeing life through her rose-colored glasses, she perhaps thought (as is revealed by suicide note) a sexual relationship with the man of her dreams and consequent marriage to the same person would give her life ultimate meaning, real purpose and lasting joy. But it did not. She was left feeling empty. She was left feeling shattered. She was so miserable that she committed suicide. On June 4, 2013, Bollywood was rudely woken up the news of her suicide by hanging from a ceiling fan during the previous night in her Juhu flat. The news of her suicide reached Bollywood director Ram Gopal Varma at 1:30 am on 4th June. She was just 25. She had acted in movies opposite to some big names in Bollywood – Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Akshay Kumar. Temporary fame only whetted her appetite for more fame and when that did not come, Jiah took her life in disgust.
In the Bible, we get to meet a ‘male Jiah Khan.’ Bemused? Don’t be. I want to refer to Ahitophel, the counselor to kings of Israel as the ‘male Silk Jiah Khan’. Both folk reached the pinnacle of their professions in their times. Having reached the pinnacle of their careers, both suddenly faced failures. When Jiah starred opposite to Amitabh in 2007 in a movie, she was perhaps the brightest newcomer to Bollywood. While Jiah faced competition from other upcoming starlets, She was ignored. “Jiah was in Hyderabad the day before her death for an audition which didn’t go well,” new websites reported. When she contacted, Director, Ram Gopal Verma, he told her that he was not able to fit her in any of the movies he was currently working on. Jiah felt like a failure in her profession, following these experiences. She ended her life. In the same way Ahitophel’s sad end came after he committed suicide, just like Jiah’s – the Bible reveals (2 Sam 17:23). Unable to face failures in their professional lives, both of them tragically ended their lives. What Jiah and Ahitophel did not perhaps realize when they committed suicide was that they couldn’t really kill themselves. The real persons inside this duo – their souls – continued to live long after their body became lifeless following their shocking suicides. Yes, each one of us has a soul inside of us which will go on to live forever and ever. This is what the Bible teaches. God has placed, eternity in our hearts – this is the teaching of the Bible (Eccl 3:11).

In the Bible, we meet yet another Jiah Khan – we can see the woman from Samaria that Jesus met at a well that way. Both were similar in their viewpoint that sexual relationship and men would give their lives meaning and purpose. The woman from Samaria perhaps thought to herself that if she drank the water called ‘love of a man’ she would find true satisfaction in her life. She was married to five different men, one after the other. Marriage number 1, perhaps failed and she sought solace in Marriage number 2. Then Marriage number 2, too failed. This went on till Marriage number 5. After each such sour relationship, she became frustrated and sincerely believed ‘another husband who was different’ would make her life ultimately happy. But she could not find that elusive happiness. She could not find in sin, what she entered sin to find. Sin did not satisfy her soul’s inner longings! When she met Jesus at the well, she was in her relationship number 6 – a relationship that involved living-in with a man, a relationship that involved, most certainly, sex outside the boundaries of marriage. What Jesus told her was in-effect this: “If you drink the water of sex, you will thirst again. If you drink the water I give you (in other words, if you have a living, daily relationship with me) then you will never thirst again!”

“Life under the sun was meaningless unless one has a relationship with the one above the Sun – even God!” – that was the message he tried to convey in this key Bible book (Eccl 2:25). Jiah, too, perhaps, discovered that the fleeting fame of the movie world and a sexual relationship with a Movie Star’s kid, ultimately left her only to whine, one fine day. These, instead of cheering her, irreversibly wove the option of suicide into her thoughts, and drove her deep into bottomless well of depression.

Yes, you could chase all the pleasures in the world in a desperate effort to discover happiness and peace, like Jiah did. But the pleasures of the World will not offer true happiness and peace – you will soon discover that. Only a daily, deep, relationship with Jesus – the one who died on the Cross for each one of us – will give us true happiness, peace, meaning and purpose. The punishment that brings us true peace was upon Jesus while he hung on the Cross, the Bible declares (in Isaiah 53). Jiah Khan ended her life deeply disappointed with all what movies with big stars, a sexual relationship, etc., could have ever offered her. If you chase the very things she chased – sex, silver, soul-mates, stardom, etc – or those of that kind, you too will be disappointed. Come to Christ, the one who explicitly said that he came to give you life – life to the full (John 10:10)! And you will not be disappointed! And you will find true peace and lasting joy. A loving relationship with Jesus, the only God who revealed himself in the flesh during the first Christmas, would be “enough” to satisfy the inner longings of the human soul, the Bible reveals (John 14:5,6). What’s more, when you come to Jesus in true repentance, your sins – even if they uncountable and even if they are unprintable – will be purged clean through the blood he shed for us on the Cross. This is a promise of God in the Bible who never tells a lie (cf. Isa 1:18).

If we pursue a living relationship with Jesus in our lives, our soul will be joyous on this side of eternity while we are still on this earth. Not only that – we will join Jesus after death to live with him forever after our soul will be reunited with our resurrected bodies. On the other hand, If we rejected Jesus, our souls, along with its resurrected bodies, will go to a place of torment that Jesus often talked about called Hell (See Daniel 12:2). This is the teaching of the Bible. So, what would you decide to do? What choice would you make? Would you reject Christ, live a life of living hell and go to literal hell? Or, would you live in Christ, experience the peace and joy he alone can give, and go to heaven to enjoy him, forever? I hope your choice will be wise.

One of the shadow-names of Jesus in the Bible is “Rose of Sharon” (Song of Songs 2:1, The Bible). Jiah Khan hoped what she saw on the other side of her rose-colored glasses – a sexual-relationship culminating in life-long love and marriage, a successful movie career, etc., – would give her life ultimate purpose, real meaning and lasting joy. She was disappointed. She committed suicide. Come to the Rose of Sharon, even, the Lord Jesus. Just as a Rose flower’s full fragrance is felt when it’s crushed, Jesus showed his full extent of his unparalleled love for us, by allowing himself – God-in-flesh – to be crushed as a punishment for our sins on the cross two millennia ago – this is what the Bible narrates (see Isaiah 53:5 which says, “But he (Jesus) was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed”). This ‘Rose of Sharon,’ will not disappoint you. He will give purpose and meaning in life. Jesus put purpose in each step of his, confessed Paul, a Jesus-follower (I Cor. 9:26, NLT Version of the Bible). When you give your life wholly to Jesus, the Rose of Sharon, you too will have purpose in each step!

“Does 6s matter? RCB with most sixes (103) in IPL6 could not qualify to the last four, while CSK conceding most 6s (80) tops the table!” writes Mohandas Menon, a smart cricket statistician. By hitting those sixes, several of those were totally unnecessary given the match situation, the RCB batsmen were playing to the ‘gallery’. They were responding to the crowd’s demand. The result of such foolishness is for us to see – a disappointing failure to qualify for the playoffs narrowly for two years in a row. We too can ‘do a RCB’. Let me explain: we can do those things that are pleasing to the crowd and fail to walk in the “narrow”, unpopular, way which Jesus talked about (Math 7:14). The end result of following the broad way, the popular way, is ‘disqualification’ from eternal heaven (I Cor 9:27). The consequences of this folly is an everlasting torment in hell-fire – a place Jesus talked about eight times.

Have a look at this heart-rending picture from the deadliest industrial disaster to hit the South Asian nation of Bangladesh when an eight-storey building (called Rana Plaza) which housed five garment factories (that employed 4000 people) collapsed. In this chilling frozen frame we see two victims of this disaster lying covered in debris together — blood hardened on the man’s cheek like a permanent tear. Many photographers documented the April 24, 2013 tragedy, standing silent testimony to the high cost of cheap labor. As more bodies were recovered on Friday, 10 May 2013, the total number of people confirmed dead rose to 1,039, even though 2400 survivors were rescued, said Maj. Zihadul Islam, a fire service official. But Taslima Akhter, in particular, shot a heartbreaking image that put a face on the tragedy for countless viewers across the world — starting with Akhter himself. Workers continue to find bodies, many of them in decomposed state, difficult to recognize.

(From various websites)

Rewind two thousand years. The town – Jerusalem. In the country of Israel. Another tower crashes. 18 people get killed as a result. The tower had a name – the tower of Siloam. Some escape by the skin of their teeth. Narrowly. There was no newspapers then. No Times of India. No Hindustan Times. No Deccan Chronicle. By word of mouth the news reaches this man. Who? Jesus. God in flesh.

He told the crowd around him something which made their ears tingle: “Those 18 in Jerusalem the other day, the ones crushed and killed when the Tower of Siloam collapsed and fell on them, do you think they were worse sinners than all other Jerusalemites? No not at all. Unless you repent, you too will die!” (Luke 13: 3-5, The Message).

Jesus was implying that death for all of us is inevitable.

In the previous set of verses (vs. 1-2) Jesus was told about how the Roman Political ruler over the Jews in the area of Galilee named Pilate killed a few of them as they were making a sacrifice and went on to mix the blood of the dead folks in the sacrifice they offered. In the present passage, 18 people had died in an building crash accident. The implication is this: all of us would have to die – whether by assassination or by accident.

Jesus’ point here was this: those who escaped that particular building crash weren’t more righteous than those who died during it. Jesus’ message was this: all the survivors had to check there was sin in their lives and then repent from it, if there was. Jesus’ warning was this: if there was no sincere penitence there would be sure punishment. The punishment that Jesus referred to here was the punishment of perishing. “Perish” was a Bible word for an everlasting life in ever-burning hell.

Jesus is patient towards you that he does not want you to perish (in hell) but instead you would choose to take a U-turn and come to Him without wasting anymore time – that’s Peter’s point (2 Peter 3:9). Rahab, a prostitute did not “perish” because she repented (she was ready to relocate from her brothel and go with the True God believing spies who came to visit her) and believed in the True God of the Bible (see Heb 11:31). Would you also repent from sin and believe in Jesus so that you will not ‘perish’ in eternal hell?

Immediately after Jesus wrapped a message of repentance around the building crash event/the killing of Galileans event he told a story: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ “‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:6-9). What did Jesus try to convey here? It is this: “If we have escaped an assassination bid or an accident, it’s not because we are more righteous than those who have perished by it. It is because I, Jesus, have been gracious to you to give you another chance. Another chance to repent. Another chance to take a U-turn and come back to me, who died for you on the Cross. But if you stay stubbornly in sin, a day is surely coming when you will be ‘cut off’ – go to hell!”

Having escaped “certain death” would you run straight to His arms, saying ‘no’ to sin? Do it now!