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It’s a short, handwritten note. Its content is uninteresting and largely domestic. Yet on Saturday a private collector paid £42,000 for a letter written by a Baptist pastor called John Harper which he posted just as he set sail aboard the Titanic. The letter carries such value because of the extraordinary life – or to be more precise the courageous death - of its author. When the ship hit the iceberg and began to sink, Harper was offered a place in the lifeboat with his daughter, but he refused because he wanted to minister to those still on the boat, offering hope and comfort. Later he was handed a lifejacket, but he gave that away to a fellow passenger because he felt their need was greater. According to a survivor’s account, even in the water he carried on talking and ministering to fellow passengers. The auctioneer described him as the bravest man on the ship. The motivation for Harper’s courage is not hard to find. A witness who was later rescued said that, even with his last breath, he declared his faith in Christ and encouraged others to do the same. The heart of the Christian life is an act of self-giving love. As he died on the cross, Jesus made of his life a gift to the world. As a passionate Christian, Harper would have seen it as his duty to imitate that sort of selfless love even in the midst of the appalling crisis of a sinking ship. That terrible tragedy gave him the opportunity to make of his own life a gift to others. The crisis we are living with may not be quite as dramatic as the sinking of the Titanic, but it is just as deadly. As we live through it, there is surely a rich challenge in reflecting on what it might mean to make of one’s life a gift, putting the wellbeing of others first. Fortunately today that shouldn’t mean thrashing around in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. But it might mean allowing another person to be vaccinated against Covid before oneself. It might mean giving away hard-earned money so that struggling families can feed their children. It might mean offering some extra time to an employee or friend so that they can find a listening ear. Those who are courageously taking part in vaccine tests model this for me – risking their health for the benefit of people they don’t even know. The motivation might be faith, or it might be human need. But what would it mean this week to view one’s life as a gift to others.