The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is an announcement of life for everyone who believes in him. It is life that can truly be called eternal life, everlasting life. "Whosoever believes, said Jesus, "will not go the way of this dying world but will have life that can truly be called eternal. Jesus kept saying this to people, even though it was hard to believe at the time, and still is hard to believe today. He said to Martha, for example, in the incident recorded in the eleventh chapter of the gospel according to St. John, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live; and everyone who lives and believes in me will most surely not die forever and ever.

When people call something eternal, they are usually exaggerating. Eternity has become almost a figure of speech. "I waited an eternity for her, says the husband, explaining why he and his wife were twenty minutes late for dinner. When Jesus spoke about eternity, it was no figure of speech. It was straight talk from an honest man telling the truth about real life. Isn't it strange that as soon as you begin to talk about eternity, people become uneasy and even a little bit scared? They don't want to think about it. It is not that the life they know is so magnificent and , but the very thought of any other kind of life is disturbing and somewhat frightening.

A friend of mine who is a pastor made it a point to ask a whole bunch of young people in his congregation whether they wanted to live forever. Their answers surprised him. A great many of them replied with another question: "Who wants to live forever? When the pastor asked them why they shied away from living forever, they replied that they simply did not know. Some said they didn't want to live that long, forever; they didn't want to grow old, either, because they didn't want to have pain, get cancer, or anything else along the way. Some of them sounded rather hopeless about life. There was one thing they did not want: to think about "forever. My friend asked another pastor, "Do you want to live forever? The answer was: "No! I don't want to get that old. I like being 27. My friend asked, "How would you like to be 27 forever? Then came the answer, "OK, I can handle that.

Eternity is not measured in time, but in quality of life.

If I read it correctly, Jesus was talking about being 27, or better, forever. It is interesting that people always associate eternity with time, a quantity of moments or minutes, measured only in terms of days and years. Jesus was always talking about the quality of life; the difference between life and death is a lot more meaningful than the difference between days and years, even if they do play a role in the process.

Jesus was talkingmost of the timeabout the product, rather than the process. People are always preoccupied with the process, but the Lord is interested in the result. People argue about the process by which God discloses himself to the world, but God is interested in delivering to people his Word of life and salvation. In the process of bringing that salvation of God to people, Jesus said: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. Everyone who believes in me, even though he dies, yet shall he live. Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

Jesus was talking about life in distinction from death, life that overcomes death. He overcame death in resurrection from death. Resurrection is what he gives to people with all the authority of God who created life in the first place. Jesus was not just talking about living forever in heaven, sometime in the future. "Forever is now, he said, and certainly continues into the futureinto all eternity. It goes on and on right now; it never stops. "This is eternal life, said Jesus, "to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 17:3).

Jesus was talking about life as he gives it, with all the quality God intended life to have, filled with his grace and flooded with his glory. If it comes from him, it is enjoyed only in relationship with him. "That's living, said Jesus, and so said his apostles. Paul had to learn it the hard way, but he learned it: "For me, he said, "living is Christ.

Eternal life is nothing like the life we have on earth.

Jesus puts the whole question, "Do you want to live forever? into another context, the real context of life. What many people call "life today is often a kind of living death. It is filled with distrust and disappointments, with frustrations and fear. It is governed by dullness and not infrequently despair. No wonder people lose heart and lose hope at the same time. That is not really life at all.

When God is not real to people, or they hold him off at arm's length, everything grows old and gradually dies. Love grows cold, relationships break apart, wars are fought, quarrels begin, misunderstandings rupture relationshipseven within familiesaccompanied by pain, emotional upsets, and devastation of all kinds. The hymn writer once said, without God there is "death and decay all around.

In this dying world, only One has the right to say to people, "Go to hell. With him it is not just a figure of speech. No one else can say that to anybody else, not even a preacher. When God says it, and he does, everyone recognizes that righteous judgment has been pronounced by One who means what he says. "On the Day of Judgment, everyone, said Paul, "will be without excuse. Not a soul will have anything to say, except 'It's fair.' His judgments are right and pure altogether.

Into this despairing and dying world, seemingly intent upon its own destruction, burst the image of the invisible God, the One and Only whom God himself sent"not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. That One, knowing the design of his Father both in death and resurrection, proclaimed for all the world to hear: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. Everyone who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. Having died himself, he lives. That's important. It cannot be treated like any other story that may or may not be true. Either it is true, or it is not. "If it is not true, said Saint Paul, "we are yet in our sins. We have no one to look to except ourselves.

Eternal life comes only through committing our lives now to Jesus Christ.

Have we not proved to ourselves, at long last, in spite of all our pretensions, that we are not going to save ourselves? Has it not become crystal clear that no amount of organizationnot even the prattling piety of people both secular and religiousis going to save the world?

How many days and years is it going to take for humanity in general or any one of us personally to reach the conclusion that is as plain as the nose on your face? Unless salvation comes from God, there is no hope worthy of the name. There is no escape, no exit, no way out, unless, of course, Jesus Christ, God's One and Only, was right: "I am the Resurrection and the Life; everyone who believes in me, even if he dies, is going to live.

Because of their faith in Jesus, I have heard young people singing with great elation, "We shall live forever. Praise to the living God, not pride in their own accomplishments or their own traditions, makes them sing about living forever. This is life, as Jesus talked about it and as Jesus gives it. It is from him, and it comes to people like you and me simply in acceptance of the gift he has to give, the acceptance which the Bible calls faith, believing in him. There is not a scrap of our doing in it; it is all his doing!

Believe in him, my friend, and live forever. News of Jesus is Good News. He says, "I am the bread of life ... I am the living water . . . whoever hears my words and believes in him who sent me has eternal life; he has already passed from death to life (John 6:35; 5:24). You don't have to live just to die. With complete confidence in Jesus, you can . Faith in Jesus is commitment, personal commitment to him. It is not depending on yourself but depending on him. It is trusting him to be the Lord of life, able to forgive and to remove the power of human sin, putting yourself into his saving hands. You will have genuine life and a taste of eternity in the here and , renewing, rebuilding, and recreating your spirit with the breath of the Spirit of God upon you.

In Jesus Christ, God is offering you life forever. Don't just say resignedly about all the ups and downs in life, "Well, that's life! Say with a leap in your heart, "That's life! When you are down, you are never down and out. When you are up, you still have your feet on the ground. The down will not be forever because you will live forever. Instead of giving up and saying to yourself, "I have had it! wake up and live to say, "I have it. I shall live forever!

A woman went to Jesus with the sad news that her brother, Lazarus, had just died. Jesus reassured her, as you would expect him to do: "Your brother, he said, "will rise again. "Yes, I know, said the woman, "in the resurrection he will live again (John 11:2324). Jesus was moved, as she was, with love toward her brother. He went to the tomb and cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out! (John 11:43). Lazarus came out! Jesus said to the people standing around, "Take those grave clothes off of him and let him go!

The resurrection of Jesus himself has changed the course of history. Life has been unloosed upon the world, and no amount of unbelief is ever going to change that. Jesus lives, whether you believe it or not. The question remains, "Are you going to live with him? Do you want to live forever in the life he gives? That is the question before you right now. Eternal life is knowing the grace of God and receiving it into your heart with faith in Jesus. It is having in your very own life the eternal love of the living God. It is accepting his offer of forgiveness, and living the forgiven life that he gives, recognizing the friendship of God toward you, and owning up to genuine friendship with him.

If I read it correctly, it is praying to God as your Father, because he is the Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It is loving God as he first loved you and gave his Son to be the sacrifice for your sins, having in your very own heart the life of Jesus, which is the hope of glory.

Who wants to live forever? I most certainly do. Jesus himself lives for you in all his glory. Enjoy the life he has to give, learning to live forever! Not only earth, but heaven is in the picture. If earth becomes livable with faith and love toward Jesus Christ, think how heaven must be even more exciting. "The sufferings of this present time, said Saint Paul, "are not worth comparing to the glory that shall be revealed (in those who have gone in true faith here and now to serve Jesus Christ) (Rom. 8:18).

I cannot believe that heaven is anything like the place that folklore has often made of it: people strumming harps all over the place and baldheaded with wings, sitting on clouds, carried upward by an escalator like the one in the television commercial. I know enough about heaven to look forward to it with pleasure rather than with misgiving. There God is King, and everybody recognizes it. He is not the killjoy that he is made out to be by the people who do not know him. Why shouldn't there be fellowship in heaven, unstinted intellectual activity, aesthetic creativity, sensuous beauty, exploration, literature, music, art, love, and anything else that can be truly cherished and enjoyed?

An article by Calvin D. Linton published fifteen years ago in Christianity Today entitled, "What's So Great About Heaven? put it this way: "The glimmer of dawn is all we can discern, for we have yet no daylight revelation of details. We have knowledge, through promise, of certain basic conditions, principles, and qualities of that which God has prepared for those who love him. Among them: a purity of light; a restored and perfected environment; release, intensification, and refinement of intellectual activity and sensuous experience; restored balance between the body, soul, and spirit that make up our being; incalculably varied companionship; limitlessness of the horizons of personal fulfillment; a pervading knowledge of the perpetuity of bliss; and the presence of God himself (beyond imagining)...

John Newton, the sea captain who wrote "Amazing Grace, once remarked, "When I get to heaven, I shall see three wonders there: the first wonder will be to see so many people there whom I did not expect to see; the second, to miss many people whom I did expect to see; and the third and greatest wonder of all will be to find myself there.

Think of the most wonderful moment of your life. Extend that moment into all eternity, as best you can. That will give you a slight idea of what heaven will be like. Unlike so many things on earth, the realization will be infinitely better than the anticipation.

The Bible talks a lot more about the way to heaven than about heaven itself. It makes it quite clear to those people who think they will go to heaven because they are good that they will be disappointed. Only those who lay their sins on Jesus, feeling sorry for all the good they could have done and failed to do, forgiving one another as God for the sake of Christ has forgiven them, will never be disappointed. Jesus lives, and they will live with himforever.

Now is the time to know, to trust, and to follow the One who said and meant it: "I am the Resurrection and the Life; whoever believes in me, even though he dies, will live; and every last one who lives and believes in me will most certainly never die forever and ever. Amen.

The late Oswald C. J. Hoffmann was known as speaker on The Lutheran Hour, a radio ministry of the International Lutheran Laymen's League in St. Louis, Missouri. His books include: God is No Island and There is Hope.

Oswald C. J. Hoffmann

Preaching Today Tape # 28

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