Eternal Life
Ezekiel 39:21-29
Psalm 68:1-20
I Peter 4:12-19
John 17:1-11
Tim
Christoffersen
St. Anselm’s
May 12, 2002
Have
any of you heard the story of Gladys Dunn, a widow and mother who came to
a neighboring Episcopal Church a few years ago when Mother’s Day fell
on Sunday? When the congregation exchanged the Peace after an unusually long
sermon, she introduced herself to the woman next to her and said, "Hi,
I’m Gladys Dunn." The other woman looked startled, quickly looked
to her left and to her right and then said, "So am I!!" So I hope
none of you decide to change your name as you leave this morning.
I would like to talk about the words "eternal life" from the gospel
reading this morning. Let me try to create the setting in the four gospels.
The gospel reading from John you just heard is the first section of Jesus’
prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. The prayer in John has a quite different
perspective or feeling than the prayer in Matthew, Mark and Luke. In Matthew
and Mark, the feeling is captured by the Jesus’ words, "My soul
is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." In Luke the words
that capture the feeling are, "Father, if you are willing, take this
cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
The prayer in John has more of a post resurrection perspective. Jesus looks
up to heaven and says, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son
so that the Son may glorify you…and to give eternal life to all whom
you have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."
I think we have several different images when we hear the words "eternal
life." One image people have is that they think it might be pretty boring
living forever. They generally do not connect "eternal life" with
the life they are now living.
A common image is that "eternal life" starts when you die if you
have been good, followed most commandments most of the time, and attended
church fairly regularly. It is seen as a reward for a faithful life.
Another image is that "eternal life" is a reward for confessing
our sins and expressing faith. It is seen as a "free ticket" to
avoid jail, or in this case, avoid "going to hell." This "free
ticket" has something in it for me. In this image the last part of John
3:16 is dropped. For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only
Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish…"
Let’s go back to John’s words. "And this is eternal life,
that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have
sent."
There is a personal and human depth in the phrase "that they may know
you" that we often do not experience or even understand because our
language and our way of thinking is rooted in our Greek and Roman heritage.
We usually think of "know" as a matter of the mind, as an intellectual
exercise where we come to understand or know something about it or about a
person. "Knowing" is primarily a rational activity of our mind or
brain.
But John and the others who wrote the gospels were mostly Hebrew people who
lived in and were deeply influenced by Semitic and Middle Eastern culture.
The word "know" has a much deeper sense than just intellectual knowledge.
It is a knowledge that comes from the physical level, from personal experience.
It is, you might say, a matter of the heart. The word "know" often
carried the sense of the sexual relationship between a husband and wife. Do
you remember the words from the story of Adam and Eve? "And Adam knew
Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bore Cain…"
So the words "that they may know you" that Jesus uses have
a profound sense of intimacy. To know God and to know Jesus Christ is an intimate,
awesome and personal relationship. It is often difficult for Christians in
our culture today to have a relationship with a person we cannot see, hear
or touch. We are almost overcome with the focus on the material and the measurable.
Our spiritual nature is atrophied and underdeveloped.
I think mothers have a particular insight in how we can nourish our intimate
and personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. My mother has a little
saying, done in needlepoint, in the hallway just inside the front door of
her home. It says, "A mother listens with her heart."
I cannot think of a better image for intimacy between two persons than listening
to the other person with your heart. This image of ‘listening with our
heart’ also helps us understand the context of Jesus’ words in John,
"that they may know you." The Semitic and middle eastern culture
of Jesus’ time saw the heart as the ‘center’ of a person. You
knew a person by understanding their heart.
Knowing God and Jesus Christ in an intimate and personal relationship is available
to us today. ‘ Eternal life’ is not just ‘something’ that
awaits or happens at physical death to those who have expressed their faith
and asked forgiveness of their sins. It can happen to us now and it transforms
our atrophied and underdeveloped spiritual nature. Our relationship with God
through Jesus Christ can be the wellspring of deep peace and an abiding joy
in our lives regardless of the circumstances we face in our daily lives.
Eternal life is also synonymous with ‘salvation’ in this reading
from John. I have always loved the fact that the Greek word for ‘salvation’
is the feminine gender. That seems particularly appropriate on Mother’s
Day. The sense of the Greek word for salvation is ‘safety’ and ‘preservation’
of the soul.
When we go back to Jesus’ prayer in Matthew, Mark and Luke we recover
and add depth to the deeply human side of our relationship with God and the
salvation of our soul. Facing death on the cross, Jesus says, "My
soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" and the words
from Luke, Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my
will, but yours be done."
We will be faced with our challenges. Troubles will come to most of us. But
we are offered the ‘safety’ and ‘preservation’ of our
soul in a deeply personal, intimate and joyful relationship with God our Father
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
AMEN.
