Forever

Friday, Third Week of Easter

“Whoever eats this bread will live forever.”
—John 6:58b

In the past, I have always tried mightily to spiritualize phrases from the gospel like this. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in eternal life, it just made me uncomfortable to talk about it. Folks always seemed so literal-minded when they’d characterize the hereafter, it felt like they were sapping a great spiritual truth of all its mystery and holiness.

So, I tend to take phrases like this one from the Gospel of John and think about the abundant life we can experience in the here and now through participation in the life of God, even as I acknowledge a belief in life after physical death.

As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve given a lot more thought to death and what comes next. Our impermanence and mortality become ever-more apparent as the years pass, I guess. Without giving up my hesitation to talk about what the afterlife is like, I’m encouraged by the faith that there is indeed life everlasting, a continuation of the journey beyond the confines of this body. I won’t speculate as to what it will be like, as I think it surpasses anything we can conceive and imagine. I don’t even know if vestiges of my personality will remain. But I do take comfort in knowing that the energy of longing and love, of passion and desire, of beauty and grace that is the essence of my being, will, through God’s grace, be redeemed and healed and held in perfect comfort in a place beyond time and space.

That’s a magnificent and stunning thing to conceive, and it puts all the small human drama of my everyday life into a context that leaves me humbled and quiet.

Bread of Life, let me dwell ever more deeply in that space at the center of my being where you meet me and redeem me and love me forever. Amen.