Sacred Cynicism

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Bigger Difference Than You Think

On the way to the office this morning, I heard the news about the sentencing of the Times Square Bomber. As a penalty for his attempt to ignite a bomb in the heart of Manhattan, this man was sentenced to 5 consecutive 80 year prison sentences. He will spend the rest of his life in a federal prison. One might think that he would be crushed by this sentence, but he was resolute in the face of prison for life. When the judges handed down the sentence, the convicted bomber said that he would gladly trade the rest of his life in prison for his reward in the next life. His expected reward for his Islamic duty, however sadly expressed, would sustain him.

This type of thinking exhibits a dangerous lack of understanding that some Christians have demonstrated. This mistaken idea is that there is a wall of separation between this earthly life, and our reward after death in heaven. This wall was so thick, and so pronounced that this bomber was ready to commit a vicious act of evil in this life, and it would not have impacted this life after death in paradise. I know that none of us would ever do such a thing, but in other ways we exhibit the same type of thinking. Many of us think that the goal of this life is to somehow make it, or qualify for a reward in the next life. While we want to do good in order to qualify for the life to come, we still have the next life as somehow separate from this one.

Simply put, this is not how the Bible has described our reward. John 3:16 simply tells us that whoever believes in Jesus Christ has eternal life. Notice it does not tell us we will have it someday, but describes it as a present reality. Matthew 11:12 talks about heaven as something people have in the present. In the gospels heaven is simply talked about as the place where God is, not as this shiny future reward. In Revelation the author sees a vision of heaven coming down to Earth to be with humanity. This is important because in Christianity the reward is not something that only happens after we die, but something that is present with us here. If heaven is where God resides and the imagery of the Bible is that eternal life is enjoyed here, then part of our reward is that God resides with us today – in our homes, in our places of work, and in our deepest struggles.

You see, this is the thought problem behind the bomber. If reward, and God’s presence, is only something that is experienced in the life to come, then God can become oddly disconnected from anything going on in our lives. Take it to a logical conclusion, and it does not matter if one blows up a major intersection – because God is not here at all. If God is only in the next life paradise, then we can completely remove godly living from this life. Not so with Christianity. Our faith tells us that there is no divide between this life and the next. Moreover, because Jesus, God’s Son, came and lived among us, then this life has been forever changed. There is no more division between an evil, earthly life, and a holy, next life. Jesus has come and begun the restoration project with His resurrection.

It is because there is no division that I am constrained to live a holy life here. That life is to be expressed in love of God, and a holy love of my neighbor. I cannot do anything that does not exhibit a love for others. In fact, I am to be doing those things which continue and speed up God’s great restoration project which started in Christ. The early believers did not willfully die on Roman crosses and in Roman coliseums just to go to heaven. If that was the case, they could have merely avoided the pain and the authorities and still made it to heaven. They willfully died because somehow their lives and their example was changing the world for the better. That was their motivation.

If we falsely divide this earthly life with the next life, we will end up making some mistakes. We can get to the point when all of our thinking involves a longing for some beautiful reward that does not consider my current situation. Then in the face of injustice, or potential hardship, we can shrink in fear realizing there is no need to experience anything bad, as long as keep our next life possible. Yet that is not what Christians have done for centuries. We realize that we are called to bring about the restoration, and the holiness of God in the midst of our lives. So we sometimes are called into a difficult place because that place, those people need to see and experience the grace of Jesus Christ. If we keep in mind that God’s work includes this life, then our lives and our decisions will not get disconnected from the people around us. It may even lead us into some situations desperate for renewal. Instead of being oddly disconnected from those around us, we are called to be involved in the people and places around us. What situation do you know where God’s presence is needed? Go, because God’s presence goes with you.