Meditation for September 3, 2008

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

Job 14:7-12; John 8:51-53, 58

Job 14:7-12

Job answered...

7 For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.

8 Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground,

9 yet at the scent of water it will bud, and put forth branches like a young plant.

10 But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?

11 As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, 12 so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake.

John 8:51-53, 58

Jesus answered... 51 "Very truly I tell you, whoever keeps my word will never face death."  52 The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon.  Abraham died, and so did the prophets; yet you say, 'Whoever keeps my word will never taste death.'  53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died?  The prophets also died.  Who do you claim to be? ... 58 Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am."

Hope For Two Lifetimes

A number of years ago, we cut down a Russian olive tree in our backyard which was growing over our roof and gouging into the shingles.  Only a small stump is left.  Not too long after we cut it down, shoots began to emerge out of that stump.  Job had seen a similar thing.  In the middle of his torment and all the losses he had suffered - ten children and his health, among them - he saw that there was much more promise for a tree that had been cut down than for any human being.  At least at this point in his life, his philosophy was basically "Life is hard; then you die.  And that's the end of the story."

Because of who God is... because of the power and love of God, demonstrated in Jesus being raised from the dead on the third day... we who follow Christ have a deep and abiding hope, a hope that sees beyond this particular life on earth.  At the end of the Nicene Creed (dated from 325), we proclaim, "We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 359)  In the earliest Christian creed, the Apostles' Creed, which has probably been around since the year 150, the concluding paragraph reads, "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting." (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 96)

Our hope for life beyond the grave is firmly rooted in Jesus' resurrection - read Paul's exposition in 1 Corinthians 15 - and the promise that we will be reunited with God after we die, and given back our life with some sort of recognizable body.  That is, as Christians, we don't just proclaim that our disembodied spirit goes to be with God in some way.  No.  We will still have some sort of body. God gives us our life back again, in some kind of bodily form, just as Jesus was given his life back again, and was recognizable to them, as he ate with them and broke bread with them, and then ascended into heaven.  We believe in "the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."  It is only because we believe in the resurrection of the body that we have another hope - that we will be able to recognize and be reunited with our loved ones and all those who have died before us - in the faith. 

At one point, Paul put it this way:  "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.  But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.  For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:19-22)

Having said all this, the Christian life is not just about pining away for the next life, pining away for that time when we are "in heaven".  No.  Because of who Jesus was and what he did, we also are given a new hope for the life that we have on this earth.  Jesus reconciled us back to God and showed us what it looks like when a human being loves the Lord God "with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind", and "your neighbor as yourself". (Matthew 22:37, 39)  Jesus also proclaimed a kingdom - proclaimed the reign of God - and proclaimed that the reign of God was to come on this earth, and that we were to be co-laborers with Christ to proclaim the kingdom and bring it about.  And so we pray in the prayer that Jesus taught the disciples, "... thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..." (Matthew 6:10)  Because Jesus has come and shown us the way back to God, there is hope for everyone in this life - hope for the hungry, hope for those who are spiritually lost, hope for the lame, the prisoner, the homeless, the blind and the deaf, hope for all of us who "have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), hope for "this fragile earth, our island home." (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 370)

Because of what Jesus has done, and because of the grace and love of God, we have hope - a deep, abiding hope - for this lifetime and for the life that we begin after we die.  Thanks be to God, we are given hope for two lifetimes - this one and the next.  To quote Paul, who put it all so eloquently, almost 2,000 years ago, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35, 37-39)

By the end of the book of Job, Job's fortunes had been restored, and he had a whole different perspective on life.  Probably he had rediscovered hope, too.  There are many names given for God and for Jesus in scripture.  One of them is "our hope".  ("Christ Jesus our hope" - 1 Timothy 1:1)  I would go so far as to say that without God, and without Christ, there is not really anything to hang your hope on!  With God - with Christ (who was, in fact, way greater than Abraham) - it is whole different story!