By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership,
Sunday, September 20th, 2020 (Growing In Grace)
One
of most ‘spiritually’ informed movies in recent years was Contact, a
Sci-Fi movie staring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey. Foster played an atheist astronomer and
McConaughey a divinity professor, who accidentally came together to try to answer
a big question: What kind of life is out
there?
That
movie had a simple plot, but it became more and more complex. The childhood dream and lifelong work of the
female Astronomer was to make contact with life ‘out there’ but the surprise is
that life ‘out there’ makes contact her.
But the surprising message from ‘out there’ is not about what’s out
there, but what happens to humans after they die. That’s certainly not the contact she,
nor we would have expected. So, the
major point of the story, is that both religious people and scientific people
need hope beyond this life.
Near
the end of John’s gospel, Jesus is praying for his disciples and he gives us a
definition of the hope of eternal life.
‘This is eternal life…’, Jesus says. Now, we don’t get many direct definitions from
Jesus. But here is one: Jesus defines
for us the meaning of the phrase: ‘eternal life’. Interestingly, he doesn’t define it like we would
think. Instead of telling us what life
is like after we die, as the movie intended, Jesus focuses on what eternal life
means now.
THAT
THEY MAY KNOW YOU...
John 17:3
Most
all of us are familiar with this phrase, ‘eternal life’. It’s a most basic part of our Christian
Faith. We know it because of John 3:16:
“…’whoever believes in him shall have
eternal (or everlasting, KJV) life.”
John
3:16 affirms that the promise of eternal life means through faith in Jesus
Christ we are given the promise of life after death’—the promise that when
we die we will live in heaven with Jesus.
Eternal life and heavenly life are one in the same. What ‘heaven’ means, eternal life means. We might not be able to describe this in
detail nor precisely, but we trust that faith in Jesus gives us exactly this hope
of life beyond death. Eternal life
affirms the promise of life everlasting and life forever with God.
But
of course, such a belief and trust in the hope of eternal life goes beyond the
best, most polished, and precisely proven human knowledge we have, which we
call Science. Science promises so much
for our lives now and it adds so much quality to most every facet of our lives:
electricity, appliances, TVs, computers and cell phones. Who could imagine their lives without these
things, humans didn’t have a generation ago, but which we take for granted and
couldn’t imagine life without today? But
it is exactly this this kind of ‘knowledge’ that is unable to say anything about
what happens after we die. All that the
very best science can say is that death is ‘eternal’, not life.
For
the person who only believes in human knowledge, or in science and the highest
technology we have, there is no such thing as eternal life. Eternal Life is just wishful thinking the the
fictional, eternal fountain of youth, an unachievable fairytale even to
possibilities and methods of science. Science
can’t prove that eternal life isn’t real as a reality beyond this reality, but science simply ignores and disregards it,
because it can’t be proven in the reality we know. There is absolutely no scientific evidence
for eternal life. It doesn’t appear to exist
in the same way you now exist, your appliances exists, or our universe exists. While matter is eternal, the forms of matter
aren’t. Eternal life, as we are now
known, resides outside of scientific exploration.
While
there are, of course, people who claimed they’ve had Near Death Experiences, or
say that they have returned from the dead, such claims are still not recognized
by mainstream Science. This isn’t
supported by science because it could proven otherwise; they had dreams,
hallucinations, or visions, or they weren’t really dead. All that Science can prove and preach is
‘Eternal Death’; ‘When you are dead, you are dead.’
I
find it most interesting that when Jesus defines Eternal Life that Jesus
says nothing here about going to heaven, or what happens after we die. In another passage, Jesus did speak about
this—going to prepare a place for his disciples. Here, however, Jesus gives a definition of Eternal
Life based more on who God is, not based on where we will go when we die. In fact, right here Jesus says that to
know God is to have eternal life.
Was that the definition you were expecting—That Eternal Life begins
in knowing God right now. Eternal life
begins even before going to heaven, and before being reunited with loved ones. Eternal life is knowing God right now.
This
definition of Eternal Life comes in the form of a prayer. Do you see that? Jesus prays; ‘...this is eternal life,
that they (his disciples) May know...the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
(God) has sent.” Do you catch it? Eternal life is not what you must wait on;
Eternal life isn’t just about where you go when you die, but again, let me
repeat, to be perfectly clear, or at least as clear as this can be; according
to Jesus, Eternal Life is also about knowing God right now. Through Jesus the Eternal has entered into
our very temporary lives now, right now!
When we come to know and live in God, and when we let Jesus live in us, the
eternal is here; the eternal is in us now!
I
realize this sounds a bit strange to our modern ears. We live in a world that doesn’t think a lot
about God or much about eternity either.
We’ve kind of pushed thoughts about God and eternity to the ‘back
burner’ of the many things we want and need to do ‘now’. We don’t have much time left to think about
God until something tragic happens; like it did when basketball great, Kobe
Byrant, and his young daughter, Gianna were tragically killed in a helicopter
crash. When Kobe’s wife spoke at their
memorial service she spoke sorrowfully, but also hopefully about how she had to
believe God took them both so they could look after each other in heaven.
Besides
trying to comfort ourselves in times of tragedy, our world normally pushes God
out. There’s hardly any room left for
God in public spaces. There’s also hardly
any room left for God in many private lives.
Where do we even have time to even encounter an eternal God in our own ‘now’? How often do we speak of the eternal or seek God
right now? But here, Jesus prays for his
disciples to know the Eternal God, revealed through himself, into their own lives
and in our own lives too, right now?
I
realize we don’t think in these terms of looking for the ‘eternal’ in our own
now, so let me share a story of how practical could be. Pastor
Will Willimon tells “while he was once traveling home one night after a
speaking engagement in a remote part of South Carolina, his car began to
sputter, to falter, and finally rolled to a stop. It was ten or ten thirty on a summer evening.
The stars were out, but otherwise no light could be seen anywhere.
He
said: ‘I had no idea where I was. I got out and stood beside the car in the
darkness. Five, ten minutes passed. At last, I could hear a car in the
distance. I could see its lights now, and yes, here it came. I looked into its
lights, smiled hopefully, as it . . . passed on by, barely
slowing for me. Well, at least someone is on this road tonight, I thought. But
it was another fifteen minutes, a virtual eternity, before another car came.
And it, too, passed by. I got in the car, put my tie back on, straightened my
hair, and resumed my post beside my stricken auto. It was late now. Who in
their right mind would stop for me at midnight on a country road? Would I be
stranded here all night?
Again,
I saw lights coming toward me. As they came closer, I could hear music, loud
music, emanating from this car. It was coming at a high rate of speed. I could
tell that this car was really flying. No chance of them stopping. But as its
lights shined in my eyes, the driver of the car put on brakes and skidded,
finally coming to a stop a hundred or so feet beyond me, sliding all the way
around on the pavement. Then, throwing the car into reverse, he backed up
nearly as fast as he had come, screeching to a stop when he was even with my
car. I gulped. It was a multicolored old Lincoln with fender skirts, some part
of some sort of animal waving from the radio antenna, and two little red,
blinking lights on the back of the rearview mirror. Oh, no, I thought. What
now? Here I am in the middle of nowhere; I’m gonna die.
I could see two large men in the car. The one
on the driver’s side was wearing a T-shirt; the man on the passenger side was
bare chested. He held a large can of beer and looked at me through a pair of
dark glasses. “Hey, man,” he shouted at me from his window. “You got trouble?”
Now, I’ve got trouble. “I’m just resting, counting stars, letting my engine
cool; don’t trouble yourself over me.”
Before
I could say anything else, these strangers were out of their car, had my hood
up, offered me refreshments, and were tinkering with my motor. Nearly an hour
later, long after a dozen other cars had passed by on the other side, with the
moon well on its way down the western sky, the two shook my hand, bid me
farewell with, “Take it easy, neighbor,” and squealed off into the darkness of
a low country summer night. I headed home.
If
you can’t see God in another human person, where else can you find him? And if you only see the eternal in what
happens after you die, or only in the true
God you can’t see, and never see or look for God in the person or people you do
see, don’t you miss something (-one) very important? Didn’t you miss knowing the eternal, here and
now, in another person, and even knowing how the eternal can be known in you?
THAT
THEY MAY HAVE MY JOY.... John
17:13
So,
what’s the big deal about the ‘eternal’ coming into our now; about God being
known by us and being known through us?
At
the core of our Christian Faith is the story of how God becomes flesh and lives
among us through Jesus Christ; the incarnation we name it. But the incarnation is only half of the good
news. The other half is the atonement,
which is about how Jesus remains alive in flesh and blood through us, and dies
for us, to restore our relationship with God so that God can be restored and reflected
in our lives right now. God is revealed in Jesus so that the Spirit of
Jesus can be alive in us. The
incarnation becomes the way that restores our own relationship with God. Is that so difficult to understand? I hope not.
Because the Jesus way of dying for us, also relates to Jesus’ desire to
live in us now, and this for the living of our own days, here and now.
A
good example of how challenging it can be to have Jesus alive in us can be understood
in the growing challenge to show Christlike love and compassion in this world
bent on division, confusion and hate. Recently,
a very sad story was told in the news about a Hispanic Transgender child who
was living on the streets. It appeared
that the family and community had disowned the child. As the teen was encountered to be living
from McDonalds to McDonalds, homeless and hopeless, rumors got out in social
media that this child was threatening others.
That warning for avoidance created fear, and fear created rumors and the
fear turned to hate and this confused, abandoned and lost teen, who found no human
pity or compassion, was eventually found beaten, and murdered. When the family refused to have any kind of
memorial or remembrance for their child, it became clear just how ‘lost’ that
child had been. Only one person tried to
help. No one else cared. No one else tried. They all seem to be overtaken by fear and
hate, rather than to be filled with compassion and love.
Jesus
would have cared. Do you doubt
that? If you do, then you don’t really know
Jesus. One of the hardest things to do is
to separate the person whom God loves, from the behavior; or as we say in
church, to separate the sin from the sinner.
Jesus was able to do that. Jesus
was able, as Dottie Rambo wrote, ‘to look beyond my fault, and see my need
‘. And he doesn’t only do this for you, Jesus
can do it in you, and Jesus also does it for ‘them’ too. And for us to do this is still hard to do,
whether you are looking at another person who is struggling through life, or you
are looking honestly at yourself. It’s
hard to look, to see and not feel the fear and resist the truth, that left
unredeemed, can become cruel, cold hate.
That’s part of what it means to be
living in a broken, fallen, and complex world.
A
lot of people want to say they love, but they can’t get beyond the flaw, the
fault, or the sin. Other people say
there they have love, and they say they show love, because there see no flaw, no
fault and no sin, but what does that kind of ‘blind’ love do toward bringing universal
hope or healing? Musn’t brokenness still
be acknowledged for full healing to come?
Isn’t it only when we see flaws, see the wounds, and acknowledge the
hurts and the needs, that genuine help and the fullness of healing comes? If we become like Christ, we can be the
person who sees the sinner, but how is still given the strength to love, and to
overcome with love. Only in God’s strength
can we overcome sin with love. This is
still the only way that healing and hope break into the hurt and brokenness of
the world.
Jesus sat and ate with sinners,
but he loved them too, just as he loves us, even as we are still sinners; either
righteous or unrighteous sinners. Jesus
came to call all sinners to turn toward God’s love find hope and healing. While
I don’t think any sinner can overcome all sin in this life, I do believe that
God’s love can transform our lives ‘while we are still sinners’ beginning with
us, right where we are, here and now, ‘warts and all’.
Transformation
for any of us, can begin now, in he Spirit of Christ’s own compassion, Christ’s
own understanding, Christ’s own acceptance and his healing love and hope offered
to us, and alive in us, any and all of us, right now. We all ‘fall short of God’s glory’. We call can be restored to his glory, even
in our own brokenness by learning to acknowledge and live in the healing ‘truth’
that only God can fully save and heal us from our own sin. We certainly can’t get over sin, any sin, all
by ourselves through our own determination in this world. We all need to accept our brokenness, that we
must learn to live with, and we have to learn to accept God’s love that none of
us can live without, either now or in eternity. As John himself wrote of the hope of God’s
transforming love and hope: ‘It does not yet appear, who we shall be, but we
know, that when Christ shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him
as he is.”
There
are so many things ‘breaking’ up in our world today (families, traditions, relationships),
that it can become easier to live in fear, out of hate, than it is to choose to
live with Faith, Hope and love. But it
is important for us to choose faith, hope, and love in every situation because only
through this ‘eternal’ perspective breaking into our ‘now’ can we receive the joy
that Christ can give us, even in troubled, challenging, and difficult
times.
Do
you see that joy is also why Jesus was praying for his disciples to know
the eternal God here and now? The joy
Christ prays for us isn’t a prayer for perfect happiness or for the removal of
all life’s troubles and challenges. The
joy Christ desires for us is his own ‘joy’ which included his own struggle in
life and his suffering on the cross.
There is no wishful thinking, and no illusion (or delusion) in Christ’s
prayer for us. What here in Christ’s
prayer is a prayer for the ‘glory’ that God revealed through Christ’s own life to
also be realized as God’s eternal now revealed in and through us. What is this ‘glory’ that comes to be ‘joy’
known to us in our own here and now? Can
we also name it? Can we name the ‘joy’
that God can give us right now; that we don’t have to wait on heaven to know
and to receive?
THAT
THEY MAY ALL BE ONE... John
17:21
I
find it interesting that the ‘eternal life’ Jesus names as God becoming known
to us now, is also named the joy Jesus owned for us and wishes for us. This prayer aimed at the very source of how we
receive knowledge of God and joy through Christ, is named, not once, but twice as
the ‘glory’ that is found when ‘they may be one, as we are one’, Do you see what Jesus is praying as the key
that unlocks it all; knowledge of God and the joy of Christ? All this talk of eternal life, all this talk
of God, and all this talk of fulfillment and joy, comes down to finding God’s
glory in the ‘oneness’ and ‘unity’ we can have in each other, which reflects
the oneness of God the Father and God the Son.
Now,
I realize that this is mysterious, spiritual and religious talk---to speak of
how God the Father and God the Son are one.
It is a mystery so great it took several hundred years for the Church to
come to grips with it. But what did that
really do? For as soon as the church
settled on what they should believe about the Trinity, the church lost its own
unity and eventually broke into East and West, then Catholic and Protestant,
and then finally, as we have today, into all the many different kinds of
Christian religious expression we find in our world. Looking back at what the Church and
Christians have argued and divided over, often looks silly and ridiculous. Can’t we look at it and understand that it is
much more important and Christlike for us to stay united in our differences,
than to be divided by them?
If
there is any hope of answering the ‘oneness’ prayer which Jesus offered,
which is also meant for us, here and now?
It’s so easy to get stuck on the sin, on the differences, focusing only
on our own ideas and ideals, rather than having to face, and deal with what’s
real. It’s so easy, in a fallen world,
to let remain divided by the ‘us’ verses the ‘thems’, rather than to see how we
are all more alike than we could ever be different. How can Jesus prayer for knowing God, receiving
joy and becoming one through him, be realized by us in our own here and now?
In
the middle of this entire passage is part of the prayer, that we must decide for
our own lives, if this happens. Right
in the middle of everything Jesus says in this prayer, he asked, hopes and
prays to the Father, that he will ‘sanctify them (his disciples) in
the truth.’ This is clarified by
God’s word (John 17:17).
Of
course, the Bible can be used to be divisive too, as we all might see portions
of it differently, but Jesus isn’t speaking simply about the Scriptures, but he
is speaking the main ‘truth’ of the Bible, that guides us to God, to fullness
of life and joy, and to seeking unity with each other and for God’s great dream
for this world. This ‘Word’ of ‘truth’
is, of course, Jesus, who once challenged the experts of his own day: “You search
the Scriptures for eternal life; but the Scripture speak of me, and you do not come
to me?”
What
this means is that Jesus is praying for is ‘unity’ around himself, nothing and
no one else. “I in them, and you in
me”, he prays. So, in order to have
unity in the church, and in the world, we have to seek him, and only him, and we
must also allow Jesus to be Lord in everything, especially in how we love
others who are different.
The
year was 1939 and trainloads of Jewish children with pale, thin faces and
sunken eyes were piling into Sweden. These boys and girls, mostly only three or
four years old, would file off the trains with nothing except a large tag
around their necks stating their name, age, and hometown. Most of them had already
seen and experienced more than anyone should see or experience in a lifetime.
Swedish
families were taking the children in for the duration of the war. One of the
Swedes who opened his home to them was a man by the name of Johann Erickson, a
middle-aged man who had no children of his own. When he learned that a
frightened nine-year-old named Rolf needed a home, he responded and the little
Jewish boy began to adjust to life in his new Swedish Lutheran home. At first,
any knock on the door or loud voice outside would drive Rolf to the closet
where he would hide and cover his head, but slowly the warmth and love of his
new Swedish home began to change him. He put on weight and a spark of life
returned to his eyes. Eventually, he even began to laugh and trust again.
Later
after the Nazi invasion of Sweden, men at the machine shop where Johann worked
warned him that he would lose the boy, that the Nazis would come and take him
away. "They'll never take a child of mine," Erickson declared.
"Not as long as I'm alive."
In
keeping with the promise the Swedish government had made, Johann tried his best
to respect Rolf's religious heritage. Even though he took Rolf to Lutheran
services with him, he also saw that the boy learned his Jewish traditions and
when the time came, he arranged for Rolf to be bar mitzvahed. For when the war
ended, Johann wanted to be able to return to Rolf's parents a son who had been
raised as closely as possible in the way they would have raised him themselves.
But
when the war ended, the family was not reunited. Rolf's parents and all of his
brothers and sisters had perished in the Holocaust, their fate one with the
millions of others who had not survived the war. Rolf did not leave Sweden.
Instead of returning to Germany — to the hometown scribbled on the note around
his neck, Rolf remained in Sweden and became part of Johann's family. He was
the son Johann never had. And over the years that followed, Rolf became a
successful businessman and whenever Johann needed someone, Rolf was there. He
took him to the doctor. He cared for him when he was ill. And when he lay on
his deathbed, there was Rolf at his side to comfort him still. For in his time
of need, Johann had offered him the love of God — and they were one in service.
As
the candles of the Passover meal were burning short, as the meal drew to a
close and Jesus’ time on earth way fading, Jesus gathered his disciples around and
prayed for them in the time to come. He
prayed that God be known to them, that God’s joy would still come to them, and
he also prayed that they would be one. He
prayed for them and he prayed for us.
Remember
that great Old Testament text: “Trust the Lord with all your heart, and lean
not upon your own understandings. In all
your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.” I memorized that text young, because I needed
it then. And I still need it now. You do too.
This is true guidance for anyone, anywhere, and anytime who always must
face the limits of who we are and what we know.
If
we really want this kind of unity, which brings this kind of joy, and reveals this
kind of God, who is here, right now, we too, will have to grow up to become who
God has called us to be. This is exactly what ‘sanctify’ means,
that we become more like the God who created all of us, rather than thinking only
about ourselves. Oneness and unity does
not mean we have to give up expressing ourselves, but unity in Christ determines
how we express ourselves and how we live together for the sake of the eternal
glory of God. This is the very God who asks
us to ‘humble ourselves’ so we will one day be fully, finally, and rightly
exalted by him.
This
is how eternity breaks into the our own now, and how we become ‘one’ not only
with each other, but we find ‘oneness’ with the eternal, true, redeeming,
loving God who is still being revealed in Christ’s spirit; in whomever that
Spirit of is found. Amen.
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