A story is told about a terminally man who decided to have every arrangement made before his rapidly approaching death. He met with the local funeral director and planned every detail of his wake and funeral. He met with his lawyer to make sure that his will was up-to-date, he met with his banker to make sure that all of his financial affairs were in order, and he established a sizable endowment fund for his church. His family members were given copies of all important documents, including the will and bank books and insurance policies.
He even wrote his own obituary and gave it to the newspaper editor with strict instructions to print it exactly as he had worded it. Here’s how it began: “If you are reading this in the newspaper, then I have breathed my last and I am no longer in this world. I am expecting to go to the eternal world promised by Jesus. Hopefully I am headed up and not down.”
Up and not down? It’s a sentiment that we all share, of course – going to heaven rather than hell. But there’s one word in that obituary that bothers me a lot: the word “hopefully.” He had written: “Hopefully I am headed up and not down.” He wanted to go to heaven, but it appears that he wasn’t entirely certain that he would actually go there. He had at least some level of doubt. He didn’t know for sure. I honestly can’t imagine a sadder way for a Christian to die than to die with doubts. I can’t imagine a sadder way for a Christian to die than to die without the sure, absolute comfort and promise of eternal life with Jesus in heaven.
Today’s Gospel lesson is a continuation of last week’s reading, just a part of St. John’s account of Jesus’ conversation with His disciples in those hours before His arrest, trial and execution. We read that Jesus is preparing His disciples for His departure. Within 24 hours of speaking these words, he will lie dead in a tomb. On the third day he will rise from the dead and will reveal Himself to the disciples and many others for a period of 40 days. And then, on Ascension Day, the disciples will see Him ascend into heaven. From this night on, things will be very different for the disciples – after more than three years of being together virtually every hour of every day, Jesus will not physically be with them except on those occasions when He so chooses.
And that’s not the only change that will affect the lives of those 12 disciples. Later that night Judas will betray Jesus and will then kill himself. The remaining eleven disciples will soon follow the command of Jesus to “go and make disciples of all nations.” In years to come, ten of the eleven will die the cruel deaths of martyrdom and only one – John, the beloved disciple who is the author of this Gospel – will die a natural death of old age.
But on this night, on Maundy Thursday in that upper room where the Passover meal had been prepared, Jesus speaks words of comfort. His words include this beautiful promise: “Because I live, you also will live.” The original Greek word that Jesus spoke here is based on the verb ζάω. As is true of many words in the Greek language, ζάω can have different shadings of meaning depending on just how it is used within a specific sentence structure. The primary meaning is “to live,” meaning to be alive physically. When Jesus spoke these words, this true God and true man was a living, breathing human – just like the disciples, and just like you and me. When Jesus said, “Because I live, you also will live,” His words made sense – He was living, and they were living, too. But by this time on Friday evening Jesus was no longer living. We can only imagine the emotions and thoughts that were running through the minds of the disciples as they tried to comprehend everything that had happened. This is only speculation, of course, but you can’t help but wonder if they thought back to those words – “Because I live, you also will live” – with a sense of sorrow or even a sense of anger and betrayal and hurt. “Because I live, you also will live,” Jesus had said – but now their Lord did not live. And they were fearful that they might be the next ones arrested – the next ones to suffer and die.
On Easter, of course, everything changed – again. Jesus was alive, and the disciples were soon among the witnesses who testified about His resurrection. The words that he had spoken to them on Maundy Thursday again rang with truth: “Because I live, you also will live.”
But 40 days after Easter, on Ascension Day – the day that we will celebrate on Thursday of this week with a special Worship Service – we see a new meaning of the word ζάω, a meaning referring not to physical life here on earth. Now we understand this strange-sounding word to mean eternal life in heaven. In last week’s Gospel lesson Jesus told the disciples that there are many rooms in His Father’s house that He was going to prepare for them. If you really think about it, eternal life is a concept that we cannot really grasp or understand. We know what life is like here on earth, but we also realize that all of us will someday see that earthly, mortal life come to an end.
A few days ago I was thinking about the first time that I actually saw a dead person. I was staying with my grandparents when my grandmother’s brother-in-law suddenly and unexpectedly died. I was only five or six years old and too young to leave by myself, so I accompanied them to the funeral home for the visitation. I wanted to see for myself what was going on – but when I saw that elderly gentleman lying in the casket, he looked to me like he was sleeping, and I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just open his eyes and sit up. My grandmother was a lifelong and very faithful Missouri Synod Lutheran, so she tried to explain death and heaven and resurrection to me. I finally understood what she was saying about death – but the idea of eternal life after death was more than my young brain could comprehend.
“Because I live, you also will live,” Jesus promises. We don’t understand how a dead body – neither one that’s been dead for just minutes nor one that’s been dead for thousands of years – can be alive again. And with our human understanding of time measured in hours and days and years, the concept of eternity – a time that never ends – is something that we just can’t grasp. But yet, the Son of God who lived on this earth and now sits at the right hand of God the Father in heaven tells us that it shall be so. And even if we can’t fully understand it, we do fully believe it. Jesus suffered and died for our sins and rose from the grave to conquer death and the devil so that it will be so. Because He says so – and because we have been brought to faith – we believe it.
There is a third and somewhat less obvious meaning of ζάω, the Greek verb for “to live.” In these words of our Gospel lesson Jesus makes another promise to the disciples and to us: the promise to send the Holy Spirit “to be with you forever.” Once this same Holy Spirit has brought us to faith in Christ and faith in His promises, the Spirit leads us to live the sanctified life of a child of God. When we say that the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, we mean that He works a renewal in our lives – in our spirit, in our will, in our attitudes, in our desires – so that we constantly strive to overcome sin and do works that are pleasing to our God. As St. Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Does this sanctified life mean that we are no longer sinners? Sadly, no. As long as we have this earthly life, we will continue to sin – sin daily, sin often. But because we have been brought to faith and have been sanctified by the Holy Spirit, we know that our sins have been forgiven. Again we turn to the words of St. Paul, this time in his letter to the Ephesians, who tells us: “In [Christ] we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
Jesus said: “Because I live, you also will live.” And not only will we live, but we do live – live here and now. Because for the Christian who has faith in Jesus Christ, eternal life is a present and not a future possession. Our mortal life and our sanctified life and our eternal life – all exist now, today and forever. St. John says in chapter 3 verse 36 of his Gospel: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.” Not “will have” eternal life – but “has” eternal life. Now. And always.
That’s why it saddens me to hear things like the words that were said by the man who wrote his own obituary, words that express so much doubt and uncertainty. “I am expecting to go to the eternal world promised by Jesus,” he wrote. “Hopefully I am headed up and not down.”
Fellow redeemed in Christ, when you approach death, you have no reason to ever have the any worry whatsoever about heading “up and not down.” You don’t have to hope that you will spend eternity with Jesus, because you will spend eternity with Jesus. You already have ζάω – you have life – in every sense of the word. Jesus promised: “Because I live, you also will live.” You do live in and with Christ – and Christ lives in you. And no one can ever take that away from you.
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