THE LAST RIVER MILE

Yesterday we came home from a short trip to discover a small flyer placed on our door. It was from a local church, practicing the old-school evangelizing method of door-to-door soliciting. (Have to give them credit for stepping out.) The lead question in the flyer’s content was some version of an inquiry I’ve heard all my life in Christian circles: “If you died tonight, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” I’ve always had a little trouble with that. Not to deny heaven and hell at all, but is that really the lead carrot we want to hang out there in front of people? Doesn’t that imply that the primary motivation for coming to Jesus is self-preservation; guaranteeing a spot in the good place and avoiding the bad one? Any creature can be motivated by securing reward and avoiding punishment. How does that make us any different than Pavlov’s dog? What does that have to do with knowing Jesus and becoming like him?

Jesus himself offered a point-blank definition of eternal life. In John 17:3, he is recording as having said, “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” The word translated “eternal” is a form of the Greek word aionios, meaning something perpetual, ageless. It doesn’t just mean “endless” in a metric sense, like being able to count positive numbers into infinity. The word carries more of a sense of being unbounded by the constraints of time or any metric measure as limited human understanding grasps them. And it isn’t just about quantity of time. It also points to quality of an endless area. This is not something reduced to starting only when we die.

Similarly, the word translated “know” is a form of ginosko in Greek. More than just receiving and comprehending data in our minds, this word refers to first-hand experience of someone or something. Meaning an intimate, bonded relationship, this word form indicates on-going action, not something accomplished in one moment or one act. Jesus tells us that eternal life is more of a relationship and a state of being than it is a place or a status. And, if eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus, whom God has sent, then it is something that is right now, rather than something which kicks in when we breath our last.

I don’t want to disrespect those who believe the main thing is to get people to secure a spot in heaven and to avoid hell. They sometimes understand urgency better than the rest of us do. I just don’t think the carrot is streets of gold. I think the carrot is Jesus himself. If that relationship is alive and well, the make-up of the streets in “the great by and by” will take care of itself.

I’ll see you around the next bend in the river.