Contemplating Eternity
Rather listen to this blog? Listen to “Contemplating Eternity.”
Imagine this scene, if you will: It is an ordinary evening. My daughter and I are sitting on the couch, munching popcorn, watching a movie, and having what we call Girl’s Club - an at least weekly time for just the two of us. It’s time for us to just be together. Nothing profound, nothing life or world-altering, and certainly nothing deeply contemplative. And then, as we know children tend to do when it suits them, she hits me with this nugget: “Mommy…I’m scared to die.”
Now, my daughter is just barely into double-digits, so why is she already contemplating death? Upon further inquiry, I discovered it wasn’t death itself that worried her, nor whether she would go to heaven when she died. Her fear was wrapped up in the very human inability to contemplate the things of God.
Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” To try to understand the thoughts and ways of God with our human brains is futile. It would be like trying to paint the Empire State Building with a toothbrush!
She clarified for me, “But Mommy, what’s it like to live in eternity? What are we going to do for that long? What if I get bored?” I realized she wasn’t really scared of dying, she wasn’t scared of not going to heaven, and she wasn’t even really scared of being bored. She simply could not comprehend what it means to live outside of time. To exist without time. To be in the presence of I AM.
The definition of eternal is lasting or existing forever (without end or beginning). Eternal is God - who always was and always will be. Not created, but the Creator. Eternal is I AM - a statement of perpetual being - a present adjective that doesn’t move or change with time or space, but simply IS. A constant. We somewhat see this eternal circle in the Bible: It begins in the garden and ends with the New Jerusalem, but even that circle has the limitation of time that God does not.
So how can we comprehend on our level what it means to have eternal life with God? We do what we always do: we turn to Jesus.
Jesus, Emmanuel - God WITH us. He was fully human and fully God at the same time. I AM and subject to Time. His time on Earth was finite, as is our time here, yet he also always was.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the Word and has always been I AM, even as he was a human with a finite life.
We are not fully God and fully human-like Jesus, but we can rest in the promise of 1 Corinthians 13:12 - “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
In fact, we don’t have to try to figure out anything - we already live in God’s eternity - we just don’t realize it. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet, no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
We have the truth already in our DNA - the knowledge of eternity with God. To activate it, simply look in the direction of another circle.
When my daughter was just beginning to talk, and I could cuddle her close in my arms, we would look into the sky each night, she’d smile and wave her little arm at the moon, and she would say, “Hi Mr. Moon! Whatcha doing up there?” One night I asked her, “What does he say?” She looked at me as though she was confused about why I didn’t know that and said, “He doesn’t talk.”
Oh, but he does. The next time you look up at the moon, I want you to realize the moon you’re looking at is the exact same moon from Day 4 of creation: “God made two great lights - the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night,” (Genesis 1:16).
(We’re not supposed to look directly at the sun, but we can safely look at the moon!)
The moon you look at tonight, Adam and Eve looked at too. The moon that was in the sky when angels appeared to shepherds and heralded the birth of Jesus is the same one we see. That is our constant that we can look to when trying to comprehend and understand the mysteries of God. We are connected to all who have gone before us, and all who will come after us. We are connected to God from before he created humans. We are already part of eternity.
There has never been a time the moon was not there, nor will there be. The same is true of God.
AMEN
