March 18, 2012 - "Eternal Life"

John 3.14-21

Everything written about Jesus always has two themes, at least.

The first theme is celebration: In Jesus, God has done a mighty work … and by the Holy Spirit, that work continues to this very day - lives are changed, witness given, good deeds done, and the world, perhaps, is slightly better.

The second theme is sorrow: The world, it seems, continues on with hatred, war and death …  and, sadly, some of the worst evil has come at the hands of those who claim the name of Jesus and still love war and live greedy lives, and the world slips further into chaos.

In between these two themes, Jesus … Jesus lifted up, as the bronze snake of Moses was lifted up, so that all who looked up to see the bronze snake were healed … so all who look up to see Jesus, lifted up on the cross, are healed, receive life, life so powerful, so good, so pure, that it can only be called eternal life.

Life that endures and abides.

No matter what, no matter where.

Life that defies the darkness and remains true and good.

Life that cannot die … life through and through.

Eternal life … 

The cross is the centerpiece … the strange connection between heaven and earth … 

Earth with all of its sorrows and tears.

Heaven with all of its hope and healing.

Jesus the bridge.

The link.

The love of God, holding it all together … that heaven’s glory might shed light upon earth’s sorrow … and transform the earth into the realm of God … 

Where there is life and not death.

Where there is light and not darkness.

Where there is truth and not lies.

Where there is peace and not war.

Where there is equity and not disparity.

Where the hungry are fed … the naked clothed … the oppressed set free … and every child is safe.

I grew up believing that eternal life happens at the end of our life here … and so much of the business of “getting saved,” is all about going to heaven when we die!

But the Bible has something else in mind … 

Eternal life begins here and now, in the moment that we see Jesus, truly see him as the Wisdom of God, the fountain of life, the hope of the world … when we stand in the Upper Room with Thomas … When we say, with heartfelt gratitude, as Thomas did, My LORD and my God!

Eternal life begins!

In that moment of recognition … acknowledgment … surrender, eternal life captures us, takes root in us, and we begin to live eternally.

We begin to the see the world through the eyes of Jesus … his judgments become our ability to discern falsehood from truth … death from life … light from darkness - that we might know the Father and have eternal life.

Whoever believes in me doesn’t believe in me but in the one who sent me.  Whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as a light into the world so that everyone who believes in me won’t live in darkness. 

If people hear my words and don’t keep them, I don’t judge them. I didn’t come to judge the world but to save it.  Whoever rejects me and doesn’t receive my words will be judged at the last day by the word I have spoken. I don’t speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me regarding what I should speak and say. I know that his commandment is eternal life. Therefore whatever I say is just as the Father has said to me. 

God’s commandment is eternal life … and what is that commandment?

In John’s Gospel, the very next moment, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples [John 13] … and when their feet have been washed, Jesus says: If I, your LORD and teacher, have washed your feet, you, too, must wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example: just as I have done, you also must do.

A few moments later, Judas leaves the table to betray Jesus, but listen to what Jesus says in the darkest of all moments, I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other. This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.

In the First Letter of John, it is written: Dear friends, let us love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.

To love is to live … to live is to love!

Eternally!

Because love abides … love is greater than faith, greater than hope … there is nothing greater than love.

Here are some questions that may help us understand eternal life, as a way of life … here and now!

Have we learned to forgive?

Have we learned to be the first to seek reconciliation when a relationship goes wrong?

Have we learned to have a generous and grateful relationship with money and material possessions?

Have we learned to overcome our greed and live a life of simplicity?

Have we learned to love people who are different than we are, and maybe don’t even like us, and bless them and pray for them?

Have we learned to turn the other cheek, to love each other as Jesus loves us?

Have we learned to cross boundaries of race, class, culture, to be in relationship with others?

Jesus invites us to join him at the cross … at the bridge between heaven and earth … so that something of heaven can come our way … push back the darkness … restrain the deeds of evil … cleanse the earth and make it good.

Before we finish, I want to lift up two examples of eternal life … what it means to build up, to encourage, to bless, to help, to make things better … two examples of eternal life, basic and important:

I celebrate this morning Bob Hinkle - and his years of service for Little League.

And Al Richards - and his work with the Ramona Neighborhood Association.

I celebrate Bob and Al this morning.

And I celebrate Calvary on the Boulevard … all the good you do every day of the week … to make this a better world … to show the world eternal life.

That which endures.

That which abides.

The love of God in Christ Jesus our LORD!

The love we give to one another!

Eternal Life!

Amen and Amen!

May 24, 2009 - "Eternal Life"

Check HERE for audio.

John 7:6-19; I John 5:9-13

After a long illness, a woman died and arrived at the Gates of Heaven. While she was waiting for Saint Peter to greet her, she peeked through the Gates and saw that it was very beautiful.
Saint Peter came by and nodded.
The woman said to him "This is such a wonderful place! How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word", Saint Peter told her.
"Which word?" the woman asked.
"Love."

The woman correctly spelled "Love" and Saint Peter welcomed her into Heaven.

A year later, Saint Peter came to the woman and asked her to watch the Gates of Heaven for him that day. While the woman was guarding the Gates of Heaven, her husband arrived.

"I'm surprised to see you," the woman said. "How have you been?"

"Oh, I've been doing pretty well since you died," her husband told her. "I married the beautiful young nurse who took care of you while you were ill. And then I won the lottery. I sold the little house you and I lived in and bought a big mansion. And my wife and I traveled all around the world. We were on vacation and I went water skiing today. I fell, the ski hit my head, and here I am. How do I get in?"

"You have to spell a word", the woman told him.
"Which word?" her husband asked.
"Czechoslovakia."

**************

An 85-year-old couple, married 60 years, died in a car crash. They had been in good health over the years, mainly due to her interest in health food and exercise.

When they reached the pearly gates, St. Peter took them to their mansion, which was decked out with a beautiful kitchen and master bath suite and Jacuzzi. As they "ooohed and aaahed" the old man asked Peter how much all this was going to cost.

"It's free," Peter replied, "this is Heaven."

Next they went out back to see the championship golf course that the home backed up to. They would have golfing privileges everyday and each week the course changed to a new one representing the great golf courses on earth.

The old man asked, "What are the green fees?"

Peter's reply, "This is heaven, you play for free."

Next they went to the clubhouse and saw the lavish buffet lunch with the cuisines of the world laid out.

"How much to eat?" asked the old man.

"Don't you understand yet? This is heaven, it’s free!" Peter replied.

"Well, where are the low fat and low cholesterol foods?" the old man asked timidly. "That's the best part,” said St. Peter ...you can eat as much as you like of whatever you like and you never get fat and you never get sick. This is Heaven."

The old man looked at his wife and said, "You and your bran muffins - I could have been here ten years ago!

*********

Eternal life … life after death … life beyond the grave; the better place and the home in the sky …
Egyptians built pyramids and mummified their kings and queens … and stocked the burial chamber with food and drink.
Greek philosophers envisioned a perfect world, and when we shed the weakness of the flesh, our soul flies off to everlasting peace.
Revival preachers warn their audiences about hell with lurid descriptions of fire and brimstone, so you better get right with Jesus.
Islam and Buddhism, all have some version of life after death.
Not that everyone has been so happy with the idea – Karl Marx rightly described the doctrine of eternal life as an opiate for the people – just tell the poor and the oppressed, the enslaved and the imprisoned, that a better life awaits them in eternity, with mansions and pearly gates and golden streets – until then, obey the king, accept your place in the world, and do and believe what the priest tells you to do.
No wonder Marx reacted so bitterly to the doctrine of eternal life.

Some have said: when you’re dead, you’re dead! That’s all folks!
Nothing more.
Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes.
A friend of mine says, “When you die, you rot!”
My friend as least gets an A for bluntness!

Yet the human spirit longs for something more than just the span of years we have here …

In song and story, art and drama, even jokes … life after death … something more, something greater than the span of our years here, something beyond the grave.

Wishful thinking?
Are we fooling ourselves?
Is death the final reality?
The final word?
The end of it all?

John Donne, the 16th Century poet, wrote powerfully about death …

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me;
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

Paul the Apostle writes [1 Corinthians 15]:

Christ has been raised from the dead,
The first fruits of those who have died.

When this perishable body puts on imperishability,
And this mortal body puts on immortality,
Then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
Through our LORD Jesus Christ.

Therefore my beloved,
Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling
In the work of the LORD,
Because you know that in the LORD
Your labor is not vain.

The gift of eternal life.
A gift from the heart of God.
For all of God’s creation.
The promise of something new …
A new heaven and a new earth …
No one lost …
No one left behind …
For God so loved the world.

Eternal life - does it make a difference?

Paul writes to his friends: if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

If with merely human hopes I fought with wild animals at Ephesus, what would I have gained by it?
If the dead are not raised.
‘Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.’

Without a sense of eternity,
Something goes very wrong inside of us.

Life becomes a desperate run … to eat and drink our fill, because it’s all going to go away.
If we don’t have it now, we’ll never have it.

We become consumers … mindless consumers of everything.
The latest this and the biggest that.
Seize life by the throat –
Buy it, own it, drive it, see it – do it now before you hit the ground!

Without eternity,
We come to expect too much of life.
More than life can deliver.

This is not heaven on earth.
This is earth, and it’s wonderful.
And God said, ‘It is good.’
But there are limits for all of us …
Severe limits for millions …
Death and disease, war and famine …

For us here, in the land of the free, we’ve come close to creating heaven on earth … it’s marvelous to behold what we have fashioned, but it’s done hard things to our soul …

We have come to expect way too much of life.
Preachers of health, wealth and happiness promise us the moon, if we would only buy their book and attend their seminar!
The gurus of finance and prosperity beguile us with images of wealth …
Teachers of “be all you can be” and “you’re number 1” …
Five steps to success … three secrets of happiness … how to lose weight and live longer … cosmetics to take the years off … surgery to fix the nose … science and medicine to cure our diseases and prolong our lives …
We expect so much of life, because we fear that life is all there is.

And Christianity hasn’t helped us …
If there was a time when Medieval Christianity was all ABOUT eternity, much of Christianity these days is mostly warmed over porridge.
Oh sure, we talk about eternal life, but we don’t integrate it into our thinking, our daily prayers, our sense of life and hope, and most importantly, our sense of justice!

If life here is all we have … then the fear of death, the end, the terminal point, becomes a shadow hovering over everything we do and think … we don’t talk about death very well, and, of course, no one dies, they just “pass away,” flitting off to some better place, or maybe they just go away, and with a little luck, we can get on with our busy lives again, and those who linger and cry for the loss of a loved one – we tell them to get on with their life and we hurry away to our next meeting and go out shopping.
If life here is all we have, we have a lot, but we don’t have enough!

Jesus asks us: To what end and for what purpose, you gain the whole world and then forfeit your life? [Matthew 16:26].

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven … for where you treasure is, there you will find your heart [Matthew 6:19-21].

The writer to Timothy notes: There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wondered away form the faith, and pierced themselves with many pains [2 Timothy 6:6-10].

As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life [2 Timothy 6:17-19].

Paul writes: I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what is to have to plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me [Philippians 4:11b-13a].

Life is good, but our hold on life is slim.
The last time I checked, the mortality rate was still 100 per cent – we’re all on a train called time.

Sooner or later, we draw our last breath here on earth, and take our first breath of the clean cool air of eternity.

Eternity on our mind, our minds are not so restless, our lives not so frantic … a little peaceable in our pace, living through each other rather than living against each other.

Eternity in our spirit, we’re a little more relaxed and a bit more thankful … food and drink taste better.
Eternal life embedded in our consciousness, we count our blessings rather than our wants, and we share a little more easily …
Eternity ahead of us, we face the end with a deeper sense of peace …

This is world is our home, that’s for sure; but it’s a temporary home.

We’re all travelers in time.

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

Amen and Amen!