May 19, 2020   John 14:1-7

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. ² In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to the place where I am going.” ⁵ Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” ⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

This is my favorite gospel passage to read at a memorial service, because it speaks of the promise of eternal life with Jesus.  The beautiful house of God with many rooms and Jesus taking you and I there when our time comes.  Now most of us do not like thinking or talking about death.  It scares us and we would rather stay busy than face that fear. But the Corona Virus is troubling our hearts and makes it hard not to think about it.  90,000 Americans have died from this virus in little over 2 months.  That much death arouses fear, deep fear.   We fear for ourselves, our loved ones and for the economic and political futures within this unimaginable present. We do not know how to get out of this situation.  We isolate, we pray and we hope for a vaccine.

Fear and hope have danced together for centuries.  Senaca, the Roman philosopher, postulated that if we cease to hope then we will cease to fear.   We give up hope to spare us from fear.  But that is not actually true.  Fear and hope are bound together, and fear follows hope.   It is our hope for a new born baby that makes us fear for its safety.  It is our hope for a secure financial future that fuels our fear of economic collapse.    In fearing we are still hoping.

Emily Dickinson wrote:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all”

Even when you are fearing, hope perches in your soul.

God is a God of hope.  God knows our fear of death and provided a solution.  When Jesus faced death and met it with courage, that was not the end of the story.  God gave him life after death so that what felt like a final ending was actually a new beginning, a new life with God.  Eternal life was God’s answer for Jesus then, and eternal life is God’s answer for us now.   When you think about it, eternal life is the heart of the Easter message.  Easter is about resurrection, new life and hope in the face of fear and death.  God so loved us that death is no longer the last word.  Instead, God transformed the ending into a new beginning.

Later in John we read, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).  Our passage ended with a similar declaration- “From now on, you do know (God) and have seen him.”  Eternal life is knowing God and Jesus!!!  What a beautiful and simple way of thinking about it.  Eternal life starts here when we know Jesus, have faith in Jesus and lean into Jesus and magnifies when we die and are radically closer to God.

Brain McLaren, one of my favorite authors writes about eternal life this way.

“Think of death as a doorway. Death simply means leaving the presence of God in this neighborhood of history called the present. Death is merely a doorway, a passage, from one way of living in God’s presence to another way of living in God’s presence.  Through death, we join God in the vast, forever-expanding future, into which both past and present are forever taken up.  (Seeking Aliveness, p. 368).

Death can be a doorway into our renewed relationship with God.  But it can also be something more dynamic.  McLaren shares this image.

You may imagine dying to be like diving or stepping into a big wave.  You will feel yourself lifted off your feet and taken up into a swirl and curl and spin more powerful than you can now imagine.  But there is no fear, because the motion and flow will be the dance of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The rising tide will be life and joy.  The undertow will be love, and you will be drawn deeper and deeper in (Seeking Aliveness, p. 372).

This image speaks to me because it feels so vital and I have experienced being in a wave.  Yet it reframes it with love, life and no fear!  The way we are to reframe our understanding of death because of Christ dying on the cross for you and giving you eternal life with love and life and no fear!

God’s promise of eternal life is true.  Eternal life is true.

In closing I want to share a true story.  I knew I was going to preach on eternal life for over a month and God’s timing is perfect!

This week, Dan Myers, who has attended our church several times with his wife Shirley, out of the blue sends me an email.  The first time we have communicated this way.  He sends a moving, 3 page account of his father’s death and his witness to eternal life.  After holding his dad in his arms when his heart gave out and he collapsed. After CPR and medical attention that could not save him, Dan’s father died.  Haunted by dreams, nightmares really, of “what ifs” and did he do CPR right.  He was grieving his dear father.   But six months later Dan had a vivid experience of his father in heaven.  He writes,

“God reached into my life in the kindest way ever… The dream was gone, I was wide awake and at max alertness, standing on a little dirt road. I was surrounded by fields of stunningly beautiful crops, and off in the distance was a gorgeous orchard of fruit trees…..

Something moving caught my eye. Coming toward me down the little dirt road from the direction of the orchard was a small pickup truck. It held all my attention, coming all the way to me and stopping in front of me… I was stunned speechless. Driving the truck, and smiling, was my father! He was somewhere in his prime, maybe 30ish, with all his hair, handsome face, great smile and wearing his ball cap, tilted a bit to one side as he always wore it. Then, as I am still stunned and panting, he spoke right to me: “I’m OK son, and you’re going to be OK too. I have to get back to work now, so I’ll see you later!” I couldn’t say or do anything, just watch as he turned the truck around and drove back to the orchard….

To this day, I know with all my being that the Lord took me to see my Dad in heaven, and I have absolutely no doubt whatever about Christ’s promise of forgiveness of sin and eternal life with Him, all bought for us by His Personal sacrifice on the cross for us.”

In the name of  the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Let all God’s children say Amen.