One day I was leafing through a copy of the Jerusalem Bible which was given for our church library by our aged priest, Canon Boardman Reed, and out of the back cover fell a piece of paper on which was typed a most remarkable statement. It’s an exerpt from a book entitled “The Gospel of the Hereafter,” by J. Paterson Smyth (spelled like S-my-th), and was written in 1910, a hundred years ago, about 3 years before Father Reed was born. I’d like to read it to you now.
The Lord is risen, but the people do not know it. There is no death, but the people do not believe it. Human life is the most exciting, romantic adventure in the Universe, going on state after stage till we are older than Methuselah and then on and on again through the infinite eternities—and yet men pass into the Unseen as stupidly as the caterpillar on the cabbage leaf, without curiosity or joy or wonder or excitement at the boundless career ahead.
Instead of the thrill of adventure we have the dull grey monotony of aged lives drawing near the close, and the loneliness of parting is intensified in the hearts of the bereaved as the beloved one crosses the barrier.
What is the matter with us, Christian people? Do we not know? Or have we lost our beliefs? Or has imagination grown dulled by too frequent repetition of God’s good news?
It was so different in the early days when the world was younger, when Christ’s revelation was fresh. Look at St. John, four-score years and ten, like an eager boy looking into the Great Adventure! ‘Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be.’
What we shall be! What we shall be! Is not that the chief delight of being young? Guessing and hoping and wondering what we shall be.
The dreariest thing in life is dullness—monotony. The brightest thing in life is outlook—vision. And God has given us that. Like St. John, we too can stand on the rim of the world and look out over the wall.
Life is full of latent possibilities—of outlook, of romance, of exciting futures. God has made it so, if only we would see it. God’s world of nature has its continuous progress, its ever new and fascinating stages. God’s acorns are to become mighty oaks—God’s little seeds in the granary today will in autumn be alive in the waving harvests. God’s world of nature is full of romantic possibilities.
And God’s world of men is infinitely more so, and one of life’s delights is to know it and look forward to it, guessing what we shall be. Outlook. Visions. That is what gives zest to life. That is what we need to make life bright and beautiful.”
What is the Rev. Father Smyth saying? If we only believed what we say we believe, that life is eternal in God for those who believe, and therefore there is nothing dark and dangerous in this life that we ought to fear or retreat from: we would live differently than we do. We often don’t, but we could have an outlook that is hopeful, fearless, courageous—but more than courageous: honest and certain of the truth.
If we say we believe in something and then we act in a way that totally seems to contradict that belief, what is it that we truly believe? If we believe it is cold and rainy as it is today, don’t we get a jacket and an umbrella before we go out? And if we believe that the paper is delivered each morning, don’t we walk out the driveway looking for it? And if we believe in eternal life, are we acting in a way that shows that we take it for granted, that we will live forever?
If we believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of this world, the Son of the One Almighty God, and that He is the Lord and Master and Judge of all of us: where is there evidence of that faith in our lives? Do we live according to that belief, or are we making sure we blend in with the rest of the planet, afraid to stand out, afraid that, after all, God may not really keep His promises, and after everything we’ve said and done and thought and believed, we’ll be disappointed in the end?
Mr. Smyth was speaking to Christians in his Gospel of the Hereafter. Let me speak to you now who are not Christians, or who may not be sure if you are.
A man was born in a tiny country ruled by a foreign imperial world power. During His entire life, he never left that region, never traveled more than the distance from Redding to Sacramento. He never wrote any books, never led an army, never was elected to any public or religious office. He died as a condemned criminal—first tortured and then hung up on display for a public spectacle. They buried His dead body in a rich man’s grave nearby and His followers ran away for fear of sharing his fate. David Koresh was better known in his own day than this man, as was the leader of the Heaven’s Gate cult, or Jim Jones. All four men died. All were officially discredited by the government and the current religions of their day.
But the man born under a star in Bethlehem, who walked the streets of Nazareth and Caperaum and Bethany and Jerusalem, who was totally poor and misunderstood even by His closest associates: This man rose alive from the dead. His resurrection was witnessed by many who would then go on to willingly die, happily telling their eyewitness account of all he said and did. His resurrection from the dead gave proof to His quiet claim to be the Son of God, The One foretold, the Savior of the world.
No other man, no king, no president, no celebrity, no general ever changed the world in His own day and ever after as He did. We base our calendar on the time of His appearance. We use His name to swear by, or to swear at. The whole world celebrates His birth every year. Western civilization was created by His followers.
So, if this man tells you—not just anyone, but YOU—“I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me;” would you give this statement some consideration? Would you be interested? Would His apparent certainty of going to heaven and preparing a place for His followers cause you to think that He wants to prepare a place for you, too?
St. Paul said that if you are led by the Spirit of God, then you are a son of God. This is not The Son, as Jesus is uniquely the eternal Son of God, but it means we become a son or daughter by adoption and grace.
What is it to be led by the Spirit of God? Ask the Spirit of God to lead you—you’ll see. Ask Christ to be your Master and Savior. Resign from being the god of your own universe and come into His universe.
I’m not saying it’s easy. Anything easy would have to be a gimmick. You’re all too smart for that. You may want to consider your options. But the facts are enormously against any other conclusion—Jesus rose from the dead. Is there any other hero who can say to you that he has conquered the grave?
Now, we Christians, if all I’ve just said is true, why don’t we live like we believe it? Heaven is better than earth. There is no fear in dying. Sally Potts, many of you knew her as Sally Morony, daughter of Judge Jean and Phyllis Morony, God bless them all and rest their souls, believed it. She heard the Word. And if Sally’s faith was real, she is today standing in the Presence of Christ: He promised her that. What suffering she may have endured here on earth—in her 58 years’ sojourn in this temporary residence—that suffering is as nothing to compare with the glory that is shown all the children of God who, in Christ, receive the gift of life without end. They were once in bondage, and now they know glorious liberty.
St. Paul aptly said it: “If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I’ve found more of what Father Smyth wrote, after the portion I found in that Bible: “Nay, you are not elderly. You are not middle-aged. These are but comparative terms. A house-fly is elderly in twenty-four hours. An oak-tree is young after a hundred years. And you, children of eternity with ages and millenniums before you--you are not even one year old babies in the light of your great future. Shake off the dullness and monotony from your life. Don't talk as if old or middle-aged any more. Be children again in the presence of the Father, and with happy child hearts keep guessing what you shall be. If we believe it, our outlook should reflect it. If we know that God has come to be with us, as one of us, and that His sacrifice for us is available for cleansing and bringing us to Himself: what on earth could be stopping us from living just that way? What on earth could be more important?
PFH+