Knowing Eternal Llife


Knowing Eternal Life

            (This blog takes a previous blog, Encountering the Woods in New Zealand and seeks to apply that insight to our knowing of God) In March I and six other family members traveled to New Zealand in March to visit our daughter and to see New Zealand. (This happened right before the covid-19 pandemic shut everything down.) We saw many wonderful sights each day.  It was a marvelous time. I want to share with you an experience I had in the rainforest of New Zealand.
            Picture towering trees, over 100 feet tall. Pines. Oaks. Trees I don’t know the name of.  Picture lush vegetation, green all around. Ferns standing 6 feet tall and reach up to the sky.  Birds flying overhead. Some sitting in the trees singing. The air rich with wonderful fragrances. I placed my hand on one of the huge trees to feel the energy of this place.
            As I stood in this rainforest, it occurred to me that there were three ways I could know and experience what was around me. The first was as a consumer, as someone who wanted to capture all that was around me, take pictures of everything, make mental snapshots and notes of the beauty so that when I left, I could take this experience with me. I wanted to consume; take in everything I saw so I could have it. I definitely experienced the rainforest this way.
            The second way I could know and experience a rainforest is to simply be present. Take a deep breath. Look around. See what was all around me. Slip out of my racing mind, active with all that was going on that day, with all that we had already seen and would be seeing. Just be with these trees, the ferns, the birds. Be here in this moment in this gorgeous rainforest.  I did this too. Paused as long as I could, without getting to far behind the group.
            Another way of knowing was to simply lose myself in this rainforest. I could stop thinking of me at all, about being in a New Zealand rainforest. I could see myself and these trees and ferns and birds as all part of one life, one energy, one existence. I could know at a deepest level the One Life that is Christ through whom the entire World was/is created. For a brief moment, I was able to touch this knowing. For that one present moment, I touched eternal life, the life that fills every moment.
            In John 17, Jesus says, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Eternal life has been defined in many ways throughout the Gospel of John.  Here Jesus tells us eternal life is to know the Father and to know Jesus Christ whom the Father has sent.  What is this to know the Father and Jesus Christ?  Is this something we can do now, in this moment?
            Returning to my rainforest experience, I can apply these three ways of knowing to God and Jesus Christ (staying with the language of John 17). The first is a knowing of the Father and Jesus Christ as a way to consume. The Father and Jesus Christ have something we want – eternal life, peace, love, hope. In this uncertain time of covid-19, we want to know that God is here, offering us what we need.  We want to be able to have the Father and Jesus Christ as our possession, something we can hold onto when all around us is in flux. Our souls, bodies and minds are hungry for this eternal life here and now.  We want to be fed. I experience this way of knowing and I call out to Jesus Christ, out of my own desire for eternal life, peace, love, and hope, not just for me but for those around me and for this shifting world. I am hungry and want to be fed. May you call out too and be fed.
            I can also know God the Father and Jesus Christ by simply being present with them. Sitting in prayer. Breathing. Repeating the Lord’s Prayer. Noticing the life around me, both the struggle and the good news. (There is plenty of good news during covid-19) I can slip out of my racing mind that has watched too much news and heard too many reports.  I can enter my heart space and just be in the presence of God, knowing God the Father and Jesus Christ as a loving presence.  I hope and pray that you know the Father and Jesus Christ in this way.  It is another way of experiencing eternal life here and now, a life that is present no matter what is happening in the world around us.
            Third, I can know God the Father and the Son by focusing head, heart, and soul on the Father and the Son, so that the distinction between me and them slips away.  I deny myself. I lose my sense of self. I lose my life in the Father and the Son and thus find myself. With Paul, I can say, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” I touch a life that is beyond my own life, a life far wider, deeper than I can ever know on my own. This is a knowing that is hard to put into words because words are inadequate for the experience. I hope and pray you know this eternal life, a life far greater than your own self, a life that can hold all the craziness in a deep love, peace and even joy. A life that knows Jesus suffered and died and rose again in a victory over all that ails this world. I have touched this eternal life for moments. Moments in which I am no more but am simply present in the presence of God.

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