| That no life lives for ever,
That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river Wanders somewhere safe to sea.. |
Secular man is convinced, for the most part, that our physical death is the end of all life for us and that the inner life of mind and spirit are but biological aspects of the human brain and terminate when the brain dies. We can hope to live on only in the memory of our contemporaries or, if we are famous or infamous, in the historical record of photographic and phonographic media. Our material legacy may live on, but as individuals we are dead and finished. Claims of a continuing existence in some spirit world, may at times be fascinating and spooky, but they have no consistent, factual evidence to support them.
Whilst that is true materially speaking, other evidence of a different kind cannot be ignored, especially that presented on religious or spiritual grounds and not least by the Christian Faith. But let's be clear, Christianity doesn't necessarily believe in the inevitable immortality of the soul as underlay much of the thinking of Greek philosophy. Neither is it Christian teaching to hold the view that, at death, our soul is absorbed into some vast ocean of undifferentiated of eternal existence or, on the other hand, to suppose that we are reincarnated into some other life-form commensurate with the merits or otherwise of our previous life. On this reading a cheating business-man would return in his next incarnation as a despised worm, whilst the life of a humble but honest peasant would be honoured in the return a handsome wealthy prince.
No! The Christian Faith claims a victory over death and the grave which carries with it the gift of Eternal Life - a life shared with God which is made possible only through faith in the crucified, risen Saviour. It is a life that starts in time and space and finds its true maturity in heaven. We are talking historical facts here - Jesus of Nazareth, conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of Mary, preaching, healing and serving God the Father, in Palestine 2,000 years ago. The God-man: who was rejected by his own people, crucified for sins and crimes which he had never committed, but rising from the dead, on the third day after his body was laid in a garden-tomb.
Jesus was a man with a following of committed disciples and had a message about a Father-God Whose kingdom was based on love and forgiveness, upon justice and righteousness and upon reconciliation and peace. There were many such travelling teachers in the land, some claiming messianic status like Judas the Galilean who was contemporary with Jesus but a bloody revolutionary, there was later Simeon-ben-Kosiba and then Menahem, the leader of the "dagger-men" whose followers ended their days committing mass suicide on Mount Masade which was under an unrelenting siege by the Romans. All these so-called messiahs, and others, met violent deaths; but, unlike Jesus Christ, no claims were made by their followers that they had been raised from the dead - their nationalistic enterprises died with them.
Only the followers of the so-called "Pale Galilean" could proclaim with
confidence that their Leader was alive and able to save people from sin,
suffering and death. His cause was fought with a courageous, forgiving,
sacrificial love that eventually embraced the whole world. But this was
not done merely to perpetuate the memory of a great teacher and leader,
for this Jesus came into the world to save the world and to give us human
beings a new life in God.
Jesus said, "I am come that you may have life and have it in all
its fulness." (John 10 verse 10). Jesus also said,
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live,
even though he dies." (John 11 verse 25)
In the flesh, our mortal bodies do indeed die and eventually perish but, in Christ, the same divine power that creates all things is able to give us a new life which death cannot touch. Or, put another way, by faith in Christ, here and now in this earthly material life, we can enter into a relationship with God which cannot be broken by our earthly demise. "Because I live, you will live also" says Jesus.
Whilst scientific study or evidence can ultimately neither prove nor disprove these statements concerning the resurrection of Jesus and our victory over death through Him, the reality of the gift of Eternal Life is borne witness to, both in history and human experience. Paul, the great convert from a legalistic and militant Judaism to a grace-centred Christianity, faces the issues implied by Jesus' actual resurrection when he writes (in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15), "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men." True indeed, if Christ were not actually risen from the dead, we Christians would be the laughing-stock of the whole world. And certainly no event in history has been as frequently and as furiously besieged as the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Yet millions have lived and died believing in Jesus' victory over the grave, and that as a result they too would conquer death and the grave. Of course we cannot be absolutely sure, 100% certain, without a shadow of a doubt, since nobody (apart from Jesus) has returned to earth, or been away from the earth long enough to verify all the facts and give us a "wish you were here" description of heaven. But, if this were to happen, what need would there be of faith and hope and perhaps even love ? It is this element of uncertainty about death that helps to keep us on our toes, in watching and praying. And the experience of God's love, in our lives here and now, builds up within us a certainty that nothing can separate us from this love, including death. The basis of certainty of the first Christians wasn't just the empty tomb, or even Jesus' resurrection appearances, but the sense of His victorious presence, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in their lives. They could declare and so should we:
Douglas Graham