Whale (Easter - Day 9)

(Based on John 17:1-11)

If there wasn't an afterlife would life on earth even matter? Would the possibility of a god even matter? Would the decision between doing right or wrong even matter? Would there even be a possibility of real and eternal life?

I say yes, and I would like to explain why I believe this.

Sometimes religion and religious texts can become so overwhelming that kids will accept whatever it is that the teacher is saying. They'll accept whatever it is that's being interpreted at the time as truth, without ever having the notion of believing. This was my course all the way to my late twenties.

My religious "truths" gave me a lens through which to see everything. And, religion has its own culture. In my religious culture, the after life - or heaven - was the arrival point, the destination. I don't recall much time being spent inside the church doing things that mattered on earth, like feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless, or caring for the sick and dying. I'm sure this was going on, I just wasn't around it to see it first-hand. 

In my recollection, Old Testament stories were a big hit with the teachers in Sunday School. The stories of a great flood killing everyone on earth because they were evil, two cities that were destroyed by God called Sodom and Gomorrah because they were homosexual, and a guy who got swallowed by a whale because he avoided doing God's will. These stories developed my first and lasting impression of God. Little did I know that what I was being taught as a kid would stay with me, give me the lens to see the world, God, and my own actions. If I could have put all these stories into one summarizing sentence, it would read something like this: I don't want to get destroyed, so I better not do evil; I don't want to get punished, so I better not avoid doing God's will; I don't want to get burned up like Sodom and Gomorrah, so I better not be gay or hang around gay people. 

The problem of course, was, I eventually did all these things. I feared God by this point, because my subconscious told me that God does bad things to bad people and good things to good people. Everything was based on an honor system, and I was one of the bad people whom God was about to punish severely. So, every time I would go to jail or get in a fight with my parents, or get drunk, I would look at these incidents as "God's punishing me for the bad things I'm doing." 

The problem was, I couldn't stop doing the things that God was "punishing" me for. The other problem was, I didn't recall learning as a child about what Jesus did. I remember praying a prayer that mentioned what Jesus did, and I remember saying it, but I didn't believe it because my mind was filled with thoughts of flood, fire, and "fire insurance." 

I walked away from my childhood church believing that God loved me or hated me, depending on how I was acting at any given time. Eternal life was the reward for anyone who acted good longer. Life was merely a competition, seeing who could do the best things and the most things to get the best and most rewards. Everything revolved around the afterlife, because how couldn't it? If there was a hell waiting for me, I needed to do everything I could to avoid that place. The problem with this was, I was focusing all my energy on avoiding a place that no one has ever seen or experienced, and oblivious to the hell I was creating on earth. 

When I believe that God loves me based on my actions, I create a living hell. I do good things in order to be loved by God instead of as a result of God's love. This is fear-based belief.

What Jesus says in John seventeen is completely counter to what I used to believe: that he is in charge of everything human and that he's giving real and eternal life to everyone in his charge. One might think that believing in God would co-exist with believing in Jesus, but for me it never did. I was so consumed with ideas about a God who was for good people and against bad people, that I couldn't possibly believe in Jesus. Jesus ran contrary to my belief systems. 

If Jesus died for the sins of the world and forgave everyone back there on the cross, it would mean that I couldn't compete for God's favor anymore. It would mean that I wouldn't have to work for a positive afterlife anymore. It would mean that people I didn't like would be on equal footing with me, including all the kids who made fun of me in junior high. Not to mention, I had so much fear about God that I was deaf to anything Jesus said about forgiveness and redemption. 

It wasn't until the fear got so great, and the alcoholism got so bad, that I was willing to reconsider. Shame drove me to the ground, ate me up, and spit me out just that that whale did to Jonah. I had to find something different. I wanted real and eternal life now.

It wasn't until my fear of God and shame of myself were removed that I began experiencing something extraordinary: peace.

Peace ended up being the one thing I had missed for all those years. Once peace set in, I began considering the story of Jesus and the principle behind him mission on earth. The story said that he came to earth as God and man, all wrapped up in one perfect but human being. The story said that he loved extravagantly, even though he was a poor carpenter. The narrative continued and said that he was establishing a new covenant, a covenant and fulfilled the old laws (the ones that said bad things happen to bad people and good things happen to good people). Jesus came to fulfill the law, meaning that for now on, everyone was set right with God, no matter what they had done or were going to do. The story goes on to say that Jesus died on the cross, and through that paid for our wrongdoings. It says he conquered hell and shame, and unleashed the power of restoration on the cross and through the resurrection. Even though I couldn't prove these things, it was the principle behind it all that I gravitated toward. I wanted to believe in a loving God who forgave me already, so that I didn't have to keep banging my head against the wall every time I screwed up.

And that's where I am today. I believe that anytime Jesus talks about eternal life, it is talking about eternal life starting . . . now. I have risen from the grave of alcoholic doom. I have seen relationships amended that were hopeless. I have found a purpose in the mundane, which makes everything in life meaningful. I believe in a Jesus who conquered hell, conquered evil, and saved all of us from the spiritual consequences of our own actions. I believe everyone has free and unlimited access to God because of what he did, and that Jesus is advocating and pushing for each of us to experience real and eternal life . . . right now.