And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in
his Son. Whoever has the Son has life;
whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5.11-12)
Recently Ruben and I went to one of
the private hospitals we visit to celebrate the eucharist. As we were setting up, one of the residents
waved at me and called me over to her side.
“I’m ninety-four years old,” she said.
“My husband is dead and both my children. Why is God keeping me alive? Why am I the only one left?”
I admitted to her that I could not
answer her second question. I have my
own questions about similar things that God has yet to answer. All I can do is to leave such things with
God. But I could answer her first
question. “I believe that you are here
because God still has things for you to do.”
After the eucharist she said to me, “You have given me some peace.”
God has given us eternal life, a
gift for the here and now as well as a promise for whatever future God intends
for us and for all of creation. Eternal
life is a quality of life to be experienced and explored not a quantity to be
measured. When eternal life is understood
to be some future state, it can and has become a tool of oppression. Women have been told to endure abusive
husbands because, in the life to come, they will be blessed. People of colour have been told to endure
injustice because, in the life to come, all will be made right. The poor have been left behind because, in
the life to come, they will enjoy the messianic banquet. These are all distortions of the eternal life
God offers to all people.
In the Gospel of John Jesus is the
incarnation of the Logos. ‘Logos’ is
most frequently translated as ‘word’, but it could also be translated as ‘the
pattern, the rationale, the logic’ by which all that is was created and into
which all creation is being restored.
Eternal life is experienced when we live our lives following the ‘logic’
of God as it is revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.
It is ‘an already’ that awaits its consummation in the ‘yet to be’.
To live life after the logic of God
in Christ is not only to be compassionate and self-giving, but also to resist
evil, to seek and serve Christ in all persons, to strive for justice and peace
among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being (The Book of
Alternative Services, p. 159). To live
life after the logic of God in Christ is to know that God’s last word to us,
even in distress and loss, is not ‘no’ but ‘yes’.
‘To have the Son of God’ cannot be
confined to the possession an orthodox set of beliefs; ‘to have the Son of God’
is choose God’s logic over the logic of selfishness and fear. This is eternal life. What will be is God’s to know; what is now is
ours to know and to do.
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