Dunbar United Church of Christ - March 22, 2009

What is this eternal life? When I was a college freshman, I had this peak in-the-zone kind of experience, a kind of mini-enlightenment, when I felt fully alive. It felt like I was floating on air and the world around me was ablaze with light. Was this a glimpse of the life eternal? It lasted only three days, so much for eternity. I have never had that experience again.

So what is eternal life? Does it mean I will live forever? Not is this body of mine. As little as we like to talk about death, we are reminded of it again and again with the passing of loved ones or tragic news accounts such as the one we heard this past week about the actress Natasha Richardson, a 44-year-old actress, who fell on the sky slope, bumped her head, got up laughing, but died a few hours later. Death here seemed to have the upper hand.

My first face-to-face encounter with death happened two summers ago when I was a hospital chaplain at Bridgeport hospital. During my first week, I was making my rounds visiting patients. There was one patient, who was comatose lying on her back, mouth open, vacantly starring at the ceiling. I avoided her and passed by her door each time. What could I do? Could she even hear me? Finally by the end of the week I went in and prayed over her. When I looked at her face again, I got a tremendous start. Her eyes were glazed over! I leapt backwards through the door and made a beeline to the nurses’ station. I told a nurse, “Miss B in room 204 does not look very good.” She responded, “I was just in there and everything seemed hunky dory.” I said she is the closest thing to a corpse as I have seen “If you like I can check her again?” She said. “Please,” I responded. She came back a few minutes later, “Yep, she’s gone.” I collapsed on a chair to catch my breath

I saw other deaths that summer. In each case it was a mystery to me, what happened to life? The difference between a live and dead person is so stark. Staring at the corpse, I would wonder where that spark of life had gone. I could not believe that it was extinguished. Rather it must continue to glow afterwards, somewhere, certainly in the hearts of loved ones.

A very personal loss for me was the sudden death of my father, when I was twenty-five years old. My parents were living in Toronto at that time and I was living in New York City. I called my father on the phone to give him the details of my flight. He said he would to pick me up at the airport. I arrived the next day and no sign of him. Nothing unusual, he could be stuck in traffic. However, I waited, and waited. This was the time before cell phones. Finally after an hour I found a pay phone and called home. My brother answered the phone and told me the news that my father had died of a heart attack that morning. I was stunned and rode in shock in the cab ride home I felt a big hole inside me open up. I had no answer for death. Then I saw a beautiful sight, the sun setting on the horizon, a big red ball. I was as if I was seeing it for the first time. I thought to myself as terrible as death can be, life can be as wonderful. I vowed then and there I would try and live my life to the fullest. To be alive!

My last story of death and life is about my changed relationship with my father-in-law following a near death experience. Several years ago, my father-in-law, who lives with us collapsed on the kitchen floor with a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the lungs. It is usually a death sentence if not caught in time. Fortunately my young son came home from school and saw him, notified the neighbor, who then called 9-1-1. He survived. However, this may shock you, I would not have been sorry to see him go. I did not like my father-in-law. He had been living with us for ten years and I resented every day of it. He was a grumpy old man, a bundle of negative energy, a black hole which sucked joy out of the room. I used to cringe every time he shuffled in the room. However, something happened to change him and me. Just last year, he collapsed again and was taken to the hospital. This time it was not as serious, but it would require five-weeks of rehabilitation. Sweet, right? No, not really. Something changed that first day I visited him in the hospital. Seeing him in this weakened state in bed, surrounded by nurses, PA’s and technicians, I was overcome with compassion for this poor helpless being. All of a sudden I felt connected to him. We proceeded to have a long conversation. I returned everyday to continue our chat. It was an amazing transformation. We had finally connected in a meaningful and emotional way. Today I can say I love him and he, me. For both of us it was a new life after a near death.

Certainly we all want to live and live life to the fullest, to be fully alive! But do we really want to live forever? In this world? I don’t. And I don’t think that is what God means by “eternal life.” From these stories I have told you, I have learnt that what keeps the spark of life going is love. That is why we need each other. That is why we need God. That is why God sent God’s only begotten son, so that we may be reminded of God’s everlasting love in which we are fully alive, lifted up like Moses’ bronze snake and Jesus on the cross, enfolded in God’s cosmic embrace.