Sunday, December 20
In the 1600s a French writer named Blaise Pascal was ruminating on the state of humanity. For him, one point was very clear: no matter how long a human being lived (and back then they didn’t live all that long), and no matter how good that person’s life was (and life wasn’t all that great back then, either), sooner or later that person was going to die.
Moreover, whatever came after death was going to be longer, infinitely longer, than the short span of life here that preceded death. Thus, for Pascal, the most logical thing a person could or should find out is what fate awaits the dead, and he was astonished to see folks get all worked up over things such as “loss of office, or for some imaginary insult to his honor,” yet they paid no heed to the question of what happened after they were to die.
Pascal had a point. And that’s no doubt why the Bible spends a great deal of time talking about the promise awaiting those who have found salvation in Jesus, the promise of what will await them in the future.
Read the following texts. What hope is offered us there? John 6:54, John 3:16, 1 John 5:13, 1 Tim. 1:16, John 4:14, John 6:40, Jude 1:21, Titus 3:7.
Eternal life makes so much sense in light of the cross; in light of the cross, nothing else makes sense but eternal life. That the Creator of the universe, the one who “made the worlds” (Heb. 1:2), the one in whom “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), that He, God, should incarnate in human flesh and in that flesh die … for what? That we ultimately rot, like roadkill?
That’s why the New Testament comes laced with promises of eternal life, for only the eternal guarantees restitution. A million years, even a billion years, might not possess enough good moments to make up for the bad. Eternity alone can balance all things out, and then some, because the infinite is more than the finite, and always infinitely so.
Pascal was right: our time here is so limited in contrast to what is coming. How silly not to be ready for the eternity that awaits us.
What do you say to someone who shows complete indifference to what happens after death? How can you help that person see just how illogical such a position really is?
