Sermon 6-5-11

"Eternal Life"
John 17:1-11

(This is part of the final prayer Jesus speaks in John’s Gospel before his betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion)

The Bible remains a wonder to me.  I’m always finding new insights or new questions to explore.  One of those questions is the meaning of the phrase “eternal life” that you heard in our reading from John.  John is big on this phrase, using at least 10 other times in his gospel. 

John’s meaning of eternal life is something along the lines of believing God’s word or living through Christ.  “Eternal life” is used in the Old Testament and in the other gospels too, but there it more behaviorally focused, doing right, or at least turning away from sin.  To keep this sermon manageable, let me limit “eternal life” just to John’s sense of believing in the Word and living through Christ.

The believing sense is illustrated by these passages from John:

• whoever believes in him may have eternal life (John 3:15)
• Very truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes he who sent me has eternal life (John 5:24)
• Very truly I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life (John 6:47)

The living in Christ sense, which was also used by Paul in his letters, is illustrated by these passages:

• Very truly I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never see death. (John 8:51)
• I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)
• and from our reading this morning – And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Jesus in these quotes is telling us that we get eternal life through believing and living in the word, but he doesn’t explain exactly what this eternal life is.  So we have to read on.  Sometimes Jesus described eternal life as the state of endless happiness enjoyed in heaven.  This would suggest a purely spiritual experience. But Jesus also uses “eternal life” to describe the fullness of life in this lifetime for those who embrace his lessons on living a good life.

An uncomfortable question needs to be raised, “Do we have to die to inherit eternal life?”  If we do have to die to live eternally, then this earthly life can be seen merely as a time of preparation for death.  We try to be good, we go to church, we ask for forgiveness, all so we can pass muster at the pearly gates and thereby gain access to the really good life in heaven.  You know the life - reclining on fluffy clouds listening to beautiful harp music, no more weeding.

Yet the Greek word John uses for ‘eternal’ is understood to contrast to the Greek word for ‘seasonal.’  Seasons have durations, beginnings and endings.  Eternity has no duration, no beginning and no end.   This means that eternity includes now, and in fact the whole space between birth and death.  Therefore we don’t have to die to experience eternal life, it can be ours, here and now.

This in turn raises another interesting question, that of immortality.  Think about it.  If we can enjoy eternal life now and after death, the part of us that enjoys must exist both in life and after death.  Therefore some aspect of us is not life-dependent, that is, was not born and does not die.  And that aspect is the part that connects with God because only God is eternal; all else is seasonal – all else comes and goes, even worlds.  This is what Jesus is telling us in John about living in him, both now and for eternity.

Eternal life I said is an exploration for me so I want to be clear.  The immortality I’m talking about as a Christian is not physical immortality.  We adult humans are all in one stage or another of gradual, irreversible, terminal decline.  We’re all going to die, although along with Mark Twain, I’m still hoping an exception may be made in my case. 

So what is it in us that doesn’t die?  Some call it soul; some call it Spirit; some call it essence.  Whatever it is, it was presented to us in last week’s reading from John 14:19,20 where Jesus explains:

In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me;
because I live, you also will live.
On that day you will know that I am in my father,
and you in me, and I in you.

Ah, that’s it.  The stuff that endures is the God within us.  That is the God-stuff that is in there now and will remain eternally.  Here on our physical plane, when we believe and follow Christ, a kind of resonance, a sympathetic vibration, is set up between the God within us and the God outside us.  An analogy is what happens when a single string is plucked on a guitar.  The plucked string vibrates and the strings near it vibrate in harmonious response. This then is the life eternal, a harmonious resonance with God.  Do you feel that resonance sometimes when we sing a hymn or hear the choir?  I do.

This internal resonance must mean that the string that vibrates is within us.  The stuff of eternity is within us.  Teilhard de Chardin, A French, Jesuit philosopher put it well, when he said,  “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience

but spiritual beings having a human experience.”

That’s a shift in perspective for many.  The full life in the Spirit is available to us today.  This is the promise of the eternal life – abundant, meaningful and significant -  which God has given us.  And that eternity –saturated life is the most fulfilling life possible.   All we have to do is believe in and live in Christ.  As

Bill Bright said, “there are no happy disobedient Christians and there are no unhappy obedient Christians.”

Living with an eternal perspective is possible.  It is possible to live that way even now, even today.  Remember, the present is the only time that touches eternity.  Therefore, what’s done in this life echoes through eternity.  Thus, our task is simple, to live every day knowing Christ and making Him known. 

Like Christ, will we be physically resurrected?   As we’ve already discussed, we don’t die spiritually, but only physically.  We have not been left guessing about our eternal future or bodily resurrection. We have a perfect example of the power of the Holy Spirit to resurrect our physical bodies. Who is that perfect example, Jesus Christ, of course.  Is the prospect of resurrection reassuring to you?  Maybe, maybe not.  Here’s a story to illustrate.

A man and his family were touring in Jerusalem when his mother-in- law died. He went to the American Consulate to make arrangements to take his mother-in-law’s body back to the US. The consulate told the man it would cost at least $100,000 to get the body back to the states what with the embalming, the special casket and the airline and customs arrangements. On the other hand, it would cost only $5,000 to bury her there. The man, with tears in his eyes, replied, no matter the cost I want her back in the States. The Consulate said you must have loved your mother-in-law very much. The man said no, not really, but I heard a story about a man named Jesus who was buried over here and He was raised from the dead.

We live in a scary world – terrorism, tsunamis, tornados, Twitter.  Life is  uncertain.  At any moment you or I could be taking our last breath.  As Christians we do not need to have any fear or uncertainty concerning death. We have received assurances about eternal life and physical resurrection for ourselves and all of our Christian loved ones. The fear of death has been removed.  We can have this certainty about everlasting life and bodily resurrection because Jesus Christ has now made us righteous, and the powerful life-giving Holy Spirit resides in us. God has resurrected our spiritual selves and He will resurrect our bodies.  We can be sure of it!

Our only necessary response to God’s promise of eternal life is to know and live in the Lord.  As William Penn said, The truest end of life is to know the life that never ends.

Amen.