"ETERNAL LIFE" ... John Series, #10

After his long good-bye, after washing the disciples’ feet, after giving them his greatest commandment to love one another, Jesus spoke to his Father in heaven before going to the Mount of Olives to face his greatest betrayal…)
 
John 17:1-5
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “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.  I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.  So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.” 
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I don’t know about you all, but I have been learning a lot of interesting things since we set out on this journey through John’s Gospel.  Things about John’s beliefs and about my own casual acceptance of the common meaning of certain words and phraseology as used in our reading of scripture.

There is one phrase in particular used quite often by the writer of John’s Gospel that apparently didn’t mean then what we have come to use it to mean now.  That phrase is “eternal life.”  Down through the centuries it has come to suggest life after this earthly life – as Marcus Borg put it, ‘Going to heaven after we’re through with this world and living forever there.’  This is the meaning most often found in the synoptic gospels in which the phrase appears eight times.

That, it appears, is not what John meant when he used it -- seventeen times – twice as many times as the three synoptics together – and those seventeen times all came from Jesus himself and coming from Jesus this phrase means something entirely different than life after death. 

• Again, quoting Borg, “Jesus and early Christianity were primarily focused on the transformation of lives and the world on this side of death.  Of course, Jesus – and early Christians such as Paul – believed in an afterlife – that death was not the end – but that was not the heart of their message.  Rather, it was about the kingdom of God on earth and what the world would be like under the lordship of God rather than the lords of this world.
• "This understanding was shared by John.  The Greek phrase translated into English as ‘eternal or everlasting life’ is better translated as ‘the life of the age to come,’ that Jewish hope for the transformation of life on earth in the here and now – for John, this life is not just a future hope, but a present active reality.”

And this  then is the heart of John’s Gospel message – that those who follow Jesus, those who hear and understand his words, those who seek to live in his way, have this eternal life and they have it right now.  Not in some far off future in some far off heavenly realm but right here and now.

Furthermore, it seems to tell us that this eternal life is for all whether they know it or not.  The “life of the age to come” is the life we live, here and now, but some of us see it and acknowledge it and are aware whereas others may for a time remain blind to it.  Being blind to it doesn’t mean we can’t have it – it’s just that we can’t live in it in it’s fullness without recognizing it.  It’s still here – we just aren’t awake enough to see it.

And all this is because of the one who existed from the beginning, before all else was – that Logos who was with God and was God and is yet God – the one who lives in us and with us and for us.

Then and now and always.

Thanks be to God – Amen.