For centuries, the key selling point to becoming a Christian was the guarantee of a life that never ends. In a culture that has managed to increase the average life span to eight, nine, even ten decades, that isn’t the draw it once was. I meet quite a few people who assume they’ll just be pushing up daisies when they die, even as they are happy to be part of Christian community, and even believe in Jesus as God.
Meanwhile, people continue to develop technologies to prolong life, retain youth, maintain consciousness, move to another planet, store yourself for awakening at a later, greater time. And they sell these for a lot of money. Maybe people aren’t so ready to let go of life.
Jesus said eternal life can be ours without signing away our life’s savings. It can be ours through believing in him: "Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die."
All the blessings the people of God had known, he says, even a blessing as great as manna in the desert, were temporal. The only truly lasting, eternal gift is the bread of life – and that, Jesus said, was him, available to those who believe. That’s too hard for some, who don’t want to just take him at his word. After all, they can’t see him. But they are willing to plunk down millions for a place in a cryogenics pod.
Is it really so hard to believe that promise? Jesus makes it pretty easy. We don’t even have to wait until we’re dead to begin to see the fruits of what we’ve signed up for. The power that raised Christ from the dead becomes a part of our lives in the here and now. The peace that transcends understanding becomes woven into our dealings with the world. The presence of God already surrounds and transforms us more and more into the likeness of Christ.
And as we allow those gifts to work in us, we become better able to manifest the love that we’re told is to mark the Christian community in this world, and will be the sole currency in the life to come, where all will be love. When no one lacks for anything, and no one prefers one person or thing to another, there are no impediments to love.
How does eternity sound to you? Inviting? Scary? Tedious? Exciting? What words come to mind?
When we begin to see our lives, our travails and challenges, and even joys from the perspective of eternity, the bad things don’t look as daunting, and the good we recognize as foretastes of the feast to come.
This life is but an antechamber to the palace in which we will dwell – a beautiful antechamber, yet just the beginning of the glory in store for us.
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