to return to your place in the text.To read endnotes, click on the the note number, then click on the
Life Everlasting. The vast majority of folks DO believe. A
survey last year from the University of Chicago's National
Opinion Research Center found that 81% of Americans believe in
life after death, more than at any time in the past twenty-five
years.(1) Last summer, the CBS magazine show "48 Hours," devoted
an entire program to life after death.(2) It reported not only
that more than four-out-of-five Americans believe in an afterlife
but also that two-thirds of all atheists believe as well. A US
News' cover story asked, "Is there life after death?"(3) The
article states, "As sophisticated medical technology has
permitted more and more people to journey back from the brink of
death, such seemingly mystical reports have become almost
commonplace...vivid images of tunnels of light, peaceful meadows,
and angelic figures clad in white...No matter what the nature of
the experience, it alters some lives... Hardened criminals opt
for a life of helping others, atheists embrace the existence of a
deity..."
Hmm. "I believe in the life everlasting." Of course, there
is vast divergence on what that life will be like. Popular books
and movies offer opinions. Last night, the ABC Saturday Night
movie was "To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday,"(4) the sad story of a
fellow whose wife had been killed in a boating accident two years
before and who, to the detriment of everything else in his life,
is maintaining a relationship with her ghost...or is it just a
hallucination? The movie does not seem quite sure. Whatever!
The recent Robin Williams film, "What Dreams May Come,"(5) IS sure.
It starts off with Robin meeting the woman of his dreams
Hollywood-style when their boats gently collide on a picturesque
lake. One look and both know they have found their soul mate,
and before the credits have finished they are blissfully married
with a pair of perfect children. But joyous as they are at the
outset, that is how miserable they become when, out of nowhere,
in more ways than one, repeated tragedies hit them, culminating
in Robin's death when his physician character tries to be a good
Samaritan at an accident scene.
Great guy that he is, Robin goes directly to heaven, leaving
his wife to grow progressively miserable back on earth, so
miserable, it turns out, that she commits suicide.
Unfortunately, our film-makers must have grown up with a medieval
theology because that act of desperation plops her smack in the
middle of Hell. Her loving husband cannot abide that result so
he works his way through a kind of Dante's "Inferno" of poor,
tormented souls on an eternal rescue mission. To make a long
story short, all comes out well in the end with a joyous family
reunion that includes the family Dalmatian and finally culminates
in a good Buddhist reincarnation where we presume this will all
get repeated over and over until they get it right.
With the closing credits we are left with a question Robin
asks of his spirit-guide, "Where is God in all this?" The
response: "Oh, up there. Somewhere. Shouting down that he loves
us. Wondering why we can't hear him." Uh-huh.
The producers of the film say that their effort is to be
understood as "spiritual" rather than "religious," and if they
mean by that wanting to offer a conglomeration of traditions
without any emphasis on just one, they succeeded. The movie is a
theological mish-mash, but it is one more reminder of our natural
fascination with what lies beyond this life. Of all creatures,
we human beings are uniquely capable of contemplating our own
mortality - that is why we are so interested in what we will find
on the other side of death, and that is why so many can say from
one tradition or another, or even no tradition at all, "I believe
in the life everlasting."
"Life Everlasting." We are brought back to our text: "For
God so love the world that he gave his only begotten Son that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have EVERLASTING
LIFE." That offers a wonderful answer to Robin Williams'
question, "Where is God in all this?" Right in the midst of it,
Robin, and from beginning to end.
The text tells us that the initiative lies with God. Good.
That clears up a misconception. Christianity is sometimes
presented like so: gruff old Father God in heaven, furious with
humanity and ready to destroy every last specimen; but then
loving Jesus came along who went so far in seeking our pardon
that he offered his own life as a sacrifice on the cross.
Humanity was saved. Whew! But this wonderful verse says that it
was with God that it all started. Instead of being this gruff
and grumpy old ogre, we read, "God so loved the world that..."
God's initiative. As we noted last week, the Christian
understanding of immortality...Life Everlasting...is that it is
NOT a trait inherent to the human soul (Plato said that, not the
Bible) - rather, it is a gift that is offered by a loving God.
Speaking of love, our verse says that is what motivates God.
It is easy to think of God as looking at us in our heedlessness
and our disobedience and our rebellion and saying: "I will break
them, I will discipline them, I will punish them until they
straighten up." It is easy to think of God as seeking our
allegiance in order to satisfy some divine desire for uncontested
power. But not according to John 3:16 - God offers eternity out
of simple love.
To whom? The whole world. Not one special nation, not just
the good people - the world. The unlovable and the unlovely, the
lonely who have no one else to love them, the one who loves God
and the one who never thinks of God, the one who rests in the
love of God and the one who spurns it - all are included in this
vast inclusive love of God. As Augustine had it: "God loves each
one of us as if there was only one of us to love."(6) The WORLD.
And how do we take advantage of this divine initiative?
Simple faith. "Whosoever believeth..." No great act of
devotion, no special sacrifice, no merit on our own at all, in
fact: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this
is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of
works, so that no one may boast."(7) WHOSOEVER.
The final outcome? "...shall not perish but have
everlasting life." A life without the tyranny of time. As one
commentator has it:
YES! "I believe in the life everlasting." Tell me more,
Preacher. Details, details. What will it be like?
John Killinger writes:
Is that true? I wish I could tell you. The Bible is rather
closed-mouth on the subject until we come to the book of
Revelation, and that, dear friends, is better understood as
poetic, not photographic. We find the throne of God fronted by a
sea of crystal and framed by a rainbow, thunder and lightning
everywhere, attended by twenty-four elders dressed in white and
praised eternally by four strange-looking winged beasts, "Day and
night without ceasing they sing, "Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God
the Almighty, who was and is and is to come."(10) A little scary
at first blush. But then there are promises - God's final
victory over oppressive systems, the end of evil and sin, and
finally, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be
no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more..."(11)
Glory!
"I believe in the Life Everlasting." No, the Bible does not
say a great deal about the life to come. As we noted last week,
perhaps the reason is that we would not understand if it did - we
have not reached the level of maturity that would allow us to
comprehend. Nothing in our experience would help us to form the
appropriate picture. As Paul says, "no eye has seen, nor ear
heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for
those who love him."(12)
Another reason may be equally important. God does not want
us to have our eyes so firmly fixed on heaven that we are no
earthly good. We have work to do RIGHT HERE. Over and over
again in the scriptures, attention is turned away from
speculations on future possibilities to imperatives concerning
the present. By faith we say THIS is what I am called to do now;
what comes after rests with God, the same God who is said to have
"so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting
life."
And, yes, we continue to insist that as we believe, so we
behave. When we know that this life is only the prelude to
another, and that the other is infinitely superior to this one,
it has a positive effect on everything we think or do. Our
Priorities change. Money, power, fame, the values of THIS world
lose their luster in the light of the NEXT. Instead, we learn to
live now with a better and more satisfying perspective.
"I believe in the Life Everlasting." Something wonderful is
on the way. David Redding, in his book, God is Up to Something,
says, "Anyone who feels sorry for a dead Christian, as though the
poor chap were missing something, is himself missing the
transfiguring promotion involved. This is what we mean by the
good news."(13)
The other day Pam Houglan e-mailed me the story of a woman
who had been diagnosed with cancer and had been given three
months to live. Her doctor told her to start making preparations
to die (something we all should be doing all of the time). So
she contacted her pastor and had him come to her house to discuss
certain aspects of her final wishes. She told him which songs
she wanted sung at the service, what scriptures she would like
read, and what she wanted to be wearing. The woman also told her
pastor that she wanted to be buried with her favorite Bible.
Everything was in order and the pastor was preparing to
leave when the woman suddenly remembered something very important
to her. "There is one more thing," she said excitedly.
"What's that?" came the pastor's reply.
"This is very important. I want to be buried with a fork in
my right hand." The pastor stood looking at the woman not
knowing quite what to say. "That shocks you, doesn't it?" the
woman asked.
"Well, to be honest, I am puzzled by the request," said the
pastor.
The woman explained. "In all my years of attending church
socials and functions where food was involved (and let's be
honest, food is an important part of any church event; spiritual
or otherwise) my favorite part was when, whoever was clearing
away the dishes of the main course would lean over and say, 'You
can keep your fork.' It was my favorite part because I knew that
something better was coming. When they told me to keep my fork I
knew that something great was about to be given to me. It wasn't
Jell-O or pudding. It was cake or pie. Something with
substance. So I just want people to see me there in that casket
with a fork in my hand and I want them to wonder, 'What's with
the fork?' Then I want you to tell them, 'Something better is
coming, so keep your fork too.'"
The pastor's eyes welled up with tears as he hugged the
woman good-bye. He knew this would be one of the last times he
would see her before her death. But he also knew that that woman
had a wonderful grasp of heaven and life everlasting. She KNEW
that something better was coming.
At the funeral, people were walking by the woman's casket
and they saw the pretty dress she was wearing and her favorite
Bible and the fork placed in her right hand. Over and over the
pastor heard the question, "What's with the fork?" And over and
over he smiled.
During his message the pastor told the people of the
conversation he had with the woman shortly before she died. He
also told them about the fork and about what it symbolized to
her. He told them how he could not stop thinking about the fork
and said that they probably would not be able to stop thinking
about it either. He was right. So the next time you reach down
for your fork, let it remind you, oh so gently, that there is
something better coming.
Yes, "I believe in the life everlasting." And, if you don't
mind, I will keep my fork.
Amen!
1. "What Dreams May Come" website,
http://www.whatdreamsmay.com/vers3/whatdreams.htm 2. 8/6/98 3. 3/31/97 4. Directed by Michael Pressman. Written by David E. Kelley. Based on the play by
Michael Brady. Produced by Marykay Powell and David E. Kelley. Released by Triumph, 1996 5. Directed by Vincent Ward. Written by Ron Bass. Based on a book by Richard Matheson.
Produced by Barnet Bain. Released by Polygram Filmed Entertainment, 1998 6. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, CD-ROM edition (Liguori, MO: Liguori
Faithware, 1996) used by permission of Westminster/John Knox Press 7. Ephesians 2:8-9 8. Harry Blamires, "The Eternal Weight of Glory," Christianity Today, 5/27/91, p. 30 9. John Killinger, "What Is Heaven Like?" Pastor's Education & Book Service, Fall, 1992,
p. 11 10. Revelation 4:2-8 11. Revelation 21:4 12. 1 Corinthians 2:9 13. David A. Redding, God is Up to Something, (Waco, TX: Word, Inc., 1972), p. 107
Here below, time withers flowers and human beauty, it
encourages good intentions to evaporate, it deprives us
of our loved ones. Within the universe ruled by time,
the happiest marriage ends in death, the loveliest
woman becomes a skeleton. Fading and aging, losing and
failing, being deprived and being frustrated - these
are the negative aspects of life in time. Life in
eternity will liberate us from all loss, all
deprivation.(8)
My wife's mother was a bright-eyed, comical little
woman who enjoyed a joke till the day she died. During
her last years she was a diabetic and the doctors
restricted her from adding sugar to her coffee and salt
to her food. She managed very well without sugar for
her coffee for there were marvelous sweetening
substitutes. But she never got used to doing without
salt, for the salt substitutes were not so effective.
We heard her say on more than one occasion, as she
stared at the unsalted breakfast eggs on her plate, "If
heaven is the way it is supposed to be, I am going to
spend my first thousand years licking on a great salt
block!"(9)
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