Question 1: What
happens after this life is over and I die?
Background
We understand from Jesus, the Prophets, the Apostles, the
Saints, the Church, and from Holy Scripture that there is one enormous problem
in our existence: we are largely, although not totally, alienated and separated
from God. The whole book of Genesis tells us of humanity’s decision to choose
our own selfish desires over God’s perfect
and good desires for us; the repercussions of choosing our way over God’s way,
which seriously screwed up our lives and even God’s whole creation; and that God’s
response was to immediately start repairing the gap in our relationship. In
fact, that is the story of the whole Older Testament: our attempts to get
closer to God or push God away, the consequences, and God’s consistent action
to bring us back to complete wholeness.
Ultimately it is Jesus who, by his birth, life, death,
resurrection, and ascension, bridges that divide between humanity and God (see
the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John). But – and this is a big caveat –
God still leaves us a choice: we can choose to head our own way, away from the
Source of Life, or we can choose God’s way uniquely revealed in Jesus, and be
reunited with the Source of Life who is God. If we choose our own way, whatever
that may be, we choose not-life, not-perfection, not-wholeness, not-health, and
not-goodness. Another way of saying this is that we choose death, corruption,
suffering, pain, and evil. This is not God’s punishment against us, but the
result, the consequence, the earnings, the “wages” of following our own
desires. It is of our own making, not God’s. (see Rom. 6:20-23 and John 3:17-18).
The Way Out
The Good News, the Gospel, is that there is another way,
a way out of our predicament in this life and the next. God has made this way
out in Jesus Christ. From several Bible texts (Acts 16:30-34, Romans 10:8-13, and I Peter 3:21) we know that the
way out in Jesus Christ is belief in Jesus, confession, resentence, and baptism
.
Belief. “Belief in Jesus” means an
active trust in Jesus, that we must hold Jesus’ teaching and example as true
and right and act upon them.
Confession is the act of speaking the
truth, that we must tell the truth about Jesus, who he is and what he did, and tell
the truth about our own need for Jesus, recognizing our own efforts to reunite
with God are insufficient.
Repentance is the resolution to let God
change our lives by choosing to act upon God’s directions and instructions. We
submit to God’s judgments, forgiveness, and restoration so that our lives
become more and more holy and less and less evil.
Baptism is the spiritual mystery given to us in a physical form
that seals us to God and God to us in an everlasting covenant (unbreakable
contract) of grace. It is a conversion of life – mind, heart, soul, and
strength – into the identity, being and purpose God gives us.
If we choose the way of Jesus – belief, confession,
repentance, and Baptism (Acts 2:37-42)– we will not
earn what we deserve, but rather be given the unending and perfect life we were
first intended, but with an extra bonus: we will be considered no longer the
mere Creation of God, but God’s very own adopted daughters and sons. This means
we will be God’s family, not merely God’s creation. And it leads us to the other
part of the Good News: eternal life with God and God’s family doesn’t have to
start after we die, it can begin right now and here.
When we die…
When we die our path continues. How do I know? I don’t
know. I trust.
1) I
trust Jesus died and came back from being dead and said he was going making a
place for his disciples. (John 14) Or do we think Jesus
and/or the author of John were liars? (see 2 Peter 1:16-21)
2) It
isn’t that easy to destroy the substance of a thing. You can pour water out of
a glass, crush the glass and dry up the puddle, but the water remains and so
does the glass. They are changed, not ended. (cf Albert Einstein and E = mc^2 )
3) God
made us with hunger and satiety. I am hungry, there is food. I am thirsty,
there is water. I am lonely; there are varieties of companionship. I long for
life after death; well, what do you think comes next? (Thanks to C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity
for this point!) This makes even more sense of Jesus’ teaching, “seek and you
shall find, ask and it shall be given you.” (Matt. 7:7-8)
Now what we have done in this life affects what our life
looks like after we die, just as our youth affects our elder years. As a
general rule, if we are following Christ, God “who began a good work among you
will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phil. 1:6) What God has not
completed in us in this life will first be completed after we die. This we can
call ‘Judgement’, where God sifts through us and separates from us all those
things that are wrong, evil, or unworthy of those who are the Children of
Heaven. Why? For the simple reason that Heaven cannot be perfect if those who
live there are imperfect.
This process of sifting and judgment has been referred to
in Scripture as a “refiner’s fire,” (Zech 13:9, Mk 9:49-50) alluding to how a
refiner will use fire to burn away impurities and bring out from the fire only
something pure and more splendidly beautiful than what was put in. Of note in
this metaphor is that the process would seem initially unpleasant, quite
possibly painful, but the final product is better off than it was before. A
more modern metaphor could be life-saving surgery – an unpleasant procedure,
but much, much better than the alternative!
Two Parables of
Judgment
Let me sum this up with two parables, neither of which
are from the Bible. Both of which illustrate well my point.
The final Judgment is like two women who had terminal
illness. Both went to a surgeon who promised to remove the infected parts. The
first woman accepted the surgeon’s help, and trusting the surgeon, passed
through the pain of surgery, recovered her health, and went on live a full and joyous
life. The second person, seeing how much of her body would be removed told the
surgeon that she was unwilling to part with so much of herself. She distrusted the
surgeon she refused surgery. She lived in agony until one day her illness finally
consumed her entire body, leaving nothing of who she once was.
Two men reached the Judgment Seat of God. Both lived
lives that were neither perfectly good nor horridly evil. As they reached the dais, Jesus
rose and pointed to a doorway of fire, the flames making a complete barrier to
what lay beyond. The first, seeing the flames raised his fist in anger against
Jesus, and swore saying, “I have done nothing to deserve Hell. You are no Just
Judge. You are the Accuser, the Satan and the Father of Lies!” And he fled as far
from the flames as he could, into the outer darkness. Now the second man, knowing
his own imperfection and sinfulness, and trusting that Jesus was steadfast in
loving-kindness, accepted what Jesus seemed to say. Though trembling with fear, he stepped through the
doorway passing through the flame and came to the other side.
There he discovered his imperfections had been burned away and he was left
changed and whole. At his right he found Jesus who had also had passed through
the flames beside him. And Jesus embraced him saying, “Well done, good and
faithful servant… ” (cf Matthew 25)
Conclusion
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