STARTING NOW

 

Every afternoon after school you can find a good number of students in our school's lobby "waiting for their ride." We Christians have always been subject to the temptation of thinking that this present life is simply a period of waiting in the lobby until God, like some Supernatural Uber Driver, comes one day to pick us up and take us home to heaven.

But Jesus' central message, the "Good News," is that the God who created the world and who delivered the Israelites from Egypt and who guided them through the wilderness for forty years and into the promised land, this same God is on the move once again, acting in history: The Kingdom of God is breaking in on us. "The Kingdom of God" Jesus announces, "is among you." It would be a terrible shame to spend our lives looking out the window anxiously watching for our Uber. I came across the following passage earlier  this week and found it helpful in thinking about the "lobby" mentality.

In being Jesus we make God present

Eternal life is something that can start here and now. Eternal life is the injection into the realm of time of something of the realm of eternity; it is the coming into human life of something of the life of God himself. It is the promise of God that if you choose to live life with Jesus Christ, heaven begins on earth. Into our human trouble and frustration there come the peace and power of God. [Slightly edited for gender- free language.] -- William Barclay "New Testament Words," 91.

God promises us eternal life, life in time and life in eternity. Barclay, in a paragraph preceding the one cited above, writes "Eternal life is not simply life which goes on forever. It is true that the NT never forgets that God promised men the resurrection from the dead (Acts 26:6). But the essential of eternal life is not simply duration: it is quality."

So, if eternal life, the Kingdom, is indeed breaking in on us right now, then our lives should have a deeper, richer quality right now. "Eternal life is the injection into the realm of time of something of the realm of eternity."

This is why we feel satisfied and happy when we are acting in love toward others. This what we're made for, and our loving kindness and selflessness are a foretaste of heaven.

So, if we live our lives according to the Gospel, then the experience of death will be not so much a wrenching separation from life, but rather a filling out of the life of love that we've already be living for some time.