The Ultimate Act of Faith

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

John 14:1-7, 25-31

I’ve noticed something about preaching recently. Until I wrote this sermon, I had never preached a sermon, nor have I heard a sermon preached on death and the afterlife. Maybe it’s because such a topic seems such a downer. Maybe since we fear death, we just don’t want to hear about it. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because we aren’t convinced of an afterlife … and so death is oblivion. But, I’ve been thinking about it lately. It’s not because I’m dying or I have a dying loved one, but because I’m a chaplain for a hospice. And with hospice, of course, I serve those who are dying and their loved ones. I need to think about it … and I need to believe.

I was at a hospice conference where the keynote speaker was a hospice chaplain. She was a Lutheran. Her topic was finding hope in dying. She was very good, an excellent speaker and told many compelling stories. But when she defined what hope is at dying, she dismissed hope for and in the afterlife as a “weak” answer. She defined hope as dying folks hoping for resolution in their lives. But that’s not really hope. That’s closure. Hope looks to the future. And what future does a dying person have, if there is no afterlife?

But do you believe in the afterlife? I think that unlike our ancestors we aren’t so sure any longer. Indeed, I suggest that one of the reasons that we try to prolong the life of a comatose patient isn’t to help them, but because we think deep down that they are going to oblivion and that means so are we … so this present life is all that there is. I found it strangely troublesome that faithful people insisted vehemently that Terri Schiavo be kept on a feeding tube long after it was medically sensible. When a person is dying, their body is shutting down and trying to feed them diminishes the quality of life for the time they have left. Why were these faithful people afraid of her returning to God? Why this idolatry of life?

Actually the Bible doesn’t help us too much with the afterlife. We get a bit of a view in our passage from the Gospel of John. Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts by troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [NRSV, Jn 14:1-2]” Just what did Jesus’ mean by “many dwelling places”? We actually don’t know. But William Barclay suggests three possibilities.

The Jews of Jesus’ time held that in heaven there were different grades of blessedness which would be given to us according to our goodness and fidelity in this life. It was as if heaven were a vast palace in which there are many rooms, with each assigned a room such as his life has merited.

A second possibility is that Jesus meant that the dwelling places are actually stages of progress and development. Some early Christian thinkers believed this. Our soul is unfinished even after death, and we continue to progress towards God. This is the origin of the idea that there are multiple heavens. Seven was a preferred number. We advanced towards the seventh heaven to God. Heaven isn’t static. We continue to resolve our lives and move to a better place.

A third and likely possibly is that Jesus simply meant that there is a place in heaven for everyone. We are a diverse people. God has made us all and leaves no one out of God’s grace. Heaven is as wide as God’s heart and there is room for all.

But we don’t know for sure, and probably never will know exactly what the afterlife is. I don’t think God intends for us to know for sure. I was talking to Professor Bruce Epperly of Lancaster Theological Seminary about this. He says he likes to think that heaven is a perfect place where we can resolve our separation from God under perfect circumstances. No longer do we have the idolatries of this age or place to interfere with our resolve to enter God’s grace. If we are willing, we will reach God.

We also want to believe that we return to our loved ones in the afterlife. This is a repeated desire over and over again. I think that desire is a true one that represents a mystery and a reality that we only know when we pass over. But we do not know for sure.

I like a combination of Bruce’s idea, which is sort of like the many heavens view and the last of Barclay’s view where every one gets a chance. God is the God of second chances, and third chances, and fourth chances … And I believe the afterlife is yet another chance for all of us, no matter how evil we’ve been here. And who knows, maybe part of resolving our lives is to return to this life in some re-incarnated form or returning to the embrace of our loved ones. We simply do not know.

Note that in all of these ideas, there is the implied belief that our conscious being continues beyond death. Death is simply a transition, a state change. In hospice, we believe this. We believe that the dying process is a process of resolution and preparation to cross over into the afterlife. Dying is part of living. During the dying process, the veil between our physical being and whatever form we take afterwards thins, until the veil disappears and we pass over.

Yet we have no proof. We never will. We have no more proof for the afterlife, than we have for God. Indeed, God is intentionally hidden. God gave us free choice and we must have the choice to deny God. So God remains hidden. We come to God by faith alone, to love God freely. So can we really count on the afterlife? Maybe the materialists are right that all that we have is the body. The mind (which is confused with the soul) emerges from the body. And when we die, the mind disappears into oblivion. They could be right. Just as God remains hidden, so the afterlife, a reflection of God, must also remain hidden. Near death experiences are no proof. I’ve read where they are easily dismissed by the response of the brain to near-death and are just figments of a particular neurological reaction. After death, maybe all that remains of a person are the fading memories of friend and family. So we want to prolong life as long as possible. Oblivion is worse than hell. And death is truly death: the end.

The afterlife is a mystery. In this scientific age we have a very hard time living without proof or the hope of proof. There is no hope of proof for the afterlife. All we have is faith. Faith is the belief in something unprovable. And in this age where science is so efficacious, we have had far less need for faith than our ancestors did. They had to have faith in God to carry them through life’s uncertainty: uncertain food, uncertain health, uncertain weather, and so forth. They had to have faith in God to carry them through life’s traumas such as the threat of starvation and the dying of babies. Science has overcome much of these uncertainties and traumas. And we are more likely to turn to science than to faith to overcome problems. So we have had far less need of faith. Faith clicks in more as psychotherapy than as a life style.

But … we are fooling ourselves. For all of science’s wondrous discoveries and efficacy, it reveals only a very small part of God’s creation. It cannot tell us what is outside the universe. It cannot tell us what the soul is. It cannot tell us what happens after death. It cannot cure world hunger. It simply does not understand the mystery of the spirit. And since it couldn’t understand the spirit, there was a time when science dismissed the spirit. But this is rare today. Even the creation that science can reveal has turned out to be mysterious, paradoxical, and inconsistent – indeed infused with a presence that only spiritual language can describe.

And we all will die. Ultimately and finally, we only have faith. And only faith in God is forever and always reliable. As our psalm reminds us, only God is forever. God transcends all our reason, all our science, all our imaginings. Faith and faith alone is the only reliable approach to life … and finally to dying. Science cannot resolve the mystery and it probably never will. The only thing we can count on is God. And when we approach the gates of death, whether to pass through them or to be with someone who is passing through them, it is the ultimate act of faith to believe that beyond death is continuation and hope and joy and … God and the peace that passes all understanding.

God’s peace and grace to you all …

Amen.