Easter 7

Easter 7 (John 17:1-11) This is eternal life.

Some words are so familiar and so unknown that they elude any meaningful impact on or lives.

The words “eternal life” are very familiar to religious people. They even have a false familiarity in the minds of secular people. They are words that Jesus fills with meaning, and purpose and power.

Most people think of eternal life as a future concern. A teen once told me he really had no interest in eternal life. “That’s for old people to worry about,” he said.
Most people think of eternal life in terms of rewards and punishments. And so, some older folk I visit in the hospital or nursing homes will say something like: “I was never very religious but I tried to live a good life.” Usually, they trail off there and never complete the thought. The implication is that heaven, or eternal life, is a future reward for doing good, or at least having good intentions.

Many people in our time and culture believe eternal life is a basic human right. They become agitated at the suggestion that any religion would presume to question this belief or apply sectarian definitions to eternal life.

A significant number of people in our world, especially in Europe and the United States, assert that eternal life is irrelevant, superstitious, and deleterious to living well here and now. They define eternal life as “pie in the sky”, or more graphically as the “opium of the masses.” For these people, eternal life is a fantasy concocted by religion to impose abusive restrictions on human behavior.

Religious people sometimes envision eternal life as endless existence. Sometimes the vision is very mundane. And so, some forms of religion teach that endless existence in heaven is about pursuing all of the pleasures you denied yourself on earth in order to assure your place in heaven.

Sometimes the vision of endless existence is abstract and ethereal. It is completely divorced from any experience of life we have in this world. In some forms it involves the loss of our personal identity as we leave this world of cause and effect and enter into a transcendent world where everything merges into one final unity.

Not so surprisingly, all people hear the word “eternal” and immediately translate it into a measure of time.

Eternal means “timeless”. Eternal means that reality that has no beginning and has no end.

In the realm of the Eternal there is no past and there is no future. Those are sequential categories of time. Some suggest that the eternal is the present moment, now. Yet, even that word has been crafted and shaped and defined in opposition to something that came before now and something that will follow now. The idea that there is only now is unsupported by human experience in the world of time.

Jesus assures us that eternal life is real. It is not a reward. It is not something you can earn, or merit, or lay a claim to as a basic human right. Eternal life is a gift. And, it is a universal gift offered to all people everywhere regardless of who they are, what they do or fail to do.

Jesus also tells us that eternal life is a quality of being not a quantity of existence. That quality is expressed in the Greek word agape. There is no single word in English to translate agape.

Agape is steadfast holy unconditional love.

Jesus teaches eternal life is a relationship.

It is a relationship with God the Father, through God the Son, by the indwelling Presence of God the Holy Spirit.

Eternal life is the life we experience in a personal relationship with the Trinity through Jesus Christ. Jesus and only Jesus is the incarnation of the co-eternal Beloved Son of the Eternal Father.

There can be no eternal life apart from Christ because only God is eternal. Only God is the author and creator of life.

If this is true then eternal life starts right now.

The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches that eternal life starts at the baptismal font. At our baptism, our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to graft our souls into the Body of His co-eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

If this is true then the choices we make in this world and in this body have eternal consequences. That is why our Heavenly Father sends the Holy Spirit to transform ordinary bread and wine into the body and blood of His co-eternal Son. That bread and wine become the medicine of immorality, the food and drink of eternal life here and now as well as in the hereafter.

If this true then it does matter how we set our priorities and make our choices.
The Good News is that eternal life is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the infinite compassion of God in human flesh. Jesus knows what it means to be human. Jesus has in fact experienced all of our sinful choices and their consequences on the cross. Jesus transforms sin back into love and death back into life.

All choices are eternal choices for those who in Christ have eternal life. The Good News is that the Holy Spirit is God Present to us and in us to help us yield our sins to be transformed in eternal love.

It is because we have eternal life here and now in our present relationship with Jesus, however tenuous and imperfect it may be, that we can offer our thoughts, feelings and will to God to be transformed.

Reunification with the Father, through the Son, by the indwelling Presence of the Holy Spirit is the Plan of Salvation.

Transformation of our attitudes, actions and priorities is the purpose of the Plan of Salvation.

The personal dynamic of our relationship with Jesus Christ forms the pattern of the Plan of Salvation.

Eternal life for human beings begins in a moment of time in the waters of baptism and then immerses our souls in the timeless reality of Divine Love and holiness. That timeless reality initiates a process that will never end. We will forever grow and transform in the infinite love and eternal life of the Triune God.

The impact of the words “eternal life” is the new life and the new way of living we receive from Jesus Christ. It is a gift. We can use it. We can ignore it. We can refuse it. It is available for everyone to receive.

Have you received the gift of eternal life in the waters of baptism?

If you have received the gift- how are you using it? Be careful how you answer this question. Since you now have eternal life all of your choices have eternal significance. You are co-creating your own soul either with Jesus Christ according the plan, the pattern and the purpose of God; or, you are not. The choice is yours.
Jesus prays that we might know with assurance and delight that we already have eternal life in him.

Jesus further prays that since we have that assurance of eternal life we will grow up, mature and make decisions that are grounded in that new reality.
The new reality is the Good News of God’s infinite and eternal and transforming love for us in Jesus Christ. It is that steadfast holy love at work in our souls here and now that is eternal life.

This is eternal life that you may know God in an intimate and personal relationship through Jesus Christ.