Archive article 19

“My Way” by Frank Sinatra

I can’t say anything else – this song by Frank Sinatra is as moving as it is magnificent!  The voice, the melody, the performance just captures my attention every time I hear it. It’s fantastic!  And yet  there’s something that bothers me deeply. It’s the title, and the words,  “My way”.

Sinatra was obviously coming to the end of his life, that time when the curtain would fall for the last time.

With this very powerful song he leaves for us what is his legacy:

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain

I've lived a life that's full
I've traveled each and ev'ry highway
But more, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets, I've had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
But more, much more than this
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way

I've loved, I've laughed and cried
I've had my fill; my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
I find it all so amusing

To think I did all that
And may I say, not in a shy way
"No, oh no not me
I did it my way"

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way!

Frank Sinatra fulfilled the American dream. He was able to be the self-sufficient man, capable of overcoming every obstacle, of determinedly facing every challenge and still stay in the saddle.  

And yet the person I admire even more than Sinatra didn’t say this when the time came for the curtain to fall for him!   Jesus didn’t say, “My way”  but the exact opposite.   Knowing death was coming, his entire body wracked with agony Jesus said to His Father, “not as I will, but as you will”!  (The Gospel of Matthew 26:39)   

This is almost unthinkable. The Son God, who would ordinarily never have had to kneel before anyone, allows himself  to be captured, tortured and barbarously killed.

Life’s secret doesn’t lie in “my way” but as Jesus said and showed, “His way” . The promise Jesus gave is totally reliable, “whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (The Gospel of John 11:26).

To kneel before God isn’t the stuff of cowards and runaways – it’s the invitation that Jesus makes to us to follow him and not the American dream.

Ours is the choice – to follow Sinatra or Jesus.                                       Paul Finch, Pastor