DECEMBER 15 2018
LEARN TO LIVE ETERNALLY
My mother once told me that when she expected me she prayed that I would become a minister of the gospel, a preacher, in other words. Fourteen years later I was sent to the six year university prep school, an institution where only the last two years offered a choice: either a pre-seminary education, or a medical/legal career. When the time came, I chose the medical/legal option.
I now know the gospel-preaching venue never fully abandoned me. In a sense all my life has led to the point today where my goal in life is to focus on the Good News. Frankly, I am thankful that I never became ensnared into the ecclesiastical network: I probably would have been booted out.
Confusion abounds: clarity needed.
If there ever was a time of non-communication, it is now, in spite of Internet, Facebook, cellphones everywhere. Seeing these faces glued to communication devices often makes me wonder what they are talking about. To me it seems that it only adds up to more confusion.
No wonder that people are lost, are at odds with themselves and with society. Perhaps it stems from the growing uncertainty. Nothing is guaranteed anymore: life-time jobs are vanishing, long established patterns are disappearing, institutions are faltering, churches are closing, the gospel truth is watered down, marriage rites abandoned.
And then there is Climate Change. Of course, it poses no immediate danger to life, and, as long as this is the case, we won’t act, until it is too late. But the peril is real and that alone means that nothing can stay the same. Yes, nothing will be done about Global Heating, so it will get worse and worse, and thus everything will be much more different.
Collapse is in the cards, and then what?
We have tremendous traveling aids thanks to GPS navigating systems, guaranteeing that we will never get lost while driving, but there’s no such thing as a Global Spiritual System, telling us what to do before we die and where we go when we die. Such knowledge is now more important than ever.
Among all this confusion, among all these changes, all for the worst, what can I offer? Me? Who am I to install myself as a modern-day preacher?
Here’s one hint: The ‘fear’ of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. ‘Fear’ means seeing the Lord as the fountain of truth. That wisdom has two components: Bible knowledge and creational insight.
It is ADVENT time.
It is ADVENT time: we look forward to Jesus returning to earth. In the churches John the Baptizer’s words are read, “A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
We certainly live in the wilderness, a wilderness so immense that it is becoming denuded of all real life, real animals, real nature, real harmony. When wild-life vanishes, when insects disappear, then collapse is not far away. All human systems, built on infinite growth in a finite system, will fail, preparing for restoration which Jesus will bring.
John’s words are directed to all people of all time and everywhere: “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
We now live in the desert, a place increasingly becoming devoid of real life, of real nature, of real animals, of real wholeness and beauty. In that wilderness, in a situation full of man-made stuff, full of our toys, full of plastic and garbage, we have to again make place for God and his creation.
In spite of all the obstacles the Evil One has placed in our path, we must heed John’s words, “Prepare the Way of the Lord”.
In my youth I learned that we all are Prophets, Priests, and Kings. That office is more valid today than ever. And today, the Good News via the WWW, the Word-Wide-Web, is available to all. Preaching in a cavernous church building is no longer effective: monologues – sermons – are the least effective ways of communication: only 7 percent of a ‘good’ sermon is retained. Moreover, the message has become stale and so has the audience.
Why me?
I don’t know about you, but I do know about me.
In my journey of faith I have greatly relied on the teachings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and J.H. Bavinck. Actually I am a sort of expert on the writings of Dr. Bavinck, himself a missionary. I have translated three of his books and thus have his writings at my fingertips.
Both theologians are thoroughly “earth-minded”, of which Bonhoeffer is the more direct, calling the ‘heaven crowd” pious secularists. Churches – witness their hymnbooks – are anchored to a heaven mentality, which always has had a negative influence on the earth. Religion will not make a comeback unless it preaches the coming of A New Earth under a New Heaven, that’s why the words of John the Baptizer are extremely valid today: “Prepare the way of the Lord”. That way is not directed heavenward, but concerns one hundred percent the earth, God’s Holy Creation.
It’ll get worse before it gets better.
The world is desperate, desperate enough to listen to the only Good News out there: The imminent coming of the total renewal of planet earth where everything will be perfect and remain perfect, because the people have learned the hard way that ‘the wages of sin, greed, pollution, is death.’
But before that Total Renewal takes place, there will be hardship, severe trauma, worse than the world have ever experienced. Faith will be tested as never before. Jesus warns us explicitly in Matthew 24, the very chapter whose prophesy is now in its first phase: “And if those days were not shortened, no flesh would have been saved but because of the chosen, shall those days be shortened”.
LEARN TO LIVE ETERNALLY
Jesus taught us how to live. Yes, Jesus loved all-round LIFE, a true example for all. His first miracle was to make wine: wine, the best wine ever, wine to get drunk on! He told Israel to come and be alive; he told us to dance when dance is called for, to shed tears when sad things happen.
My life, your life must be a reflection of the life to come, when life can be enjoyed to the full.
Eternity starts here. If writing is your talent, write. If painting is your talent, paint. If creating sculptures is your talent, go ahead. If growing food is your talent, do so organically. If making toys is your talent, continue. If making clothes is your talent do so at your heart’s content.
My life.
I started to write more than four decades ago. In October 1972, in a Canada-wide competition, my 5000 word article on THE CITY, KEY TO SURVIVAL, “an essay on Ecology and Urban Living”, was awarded the Claude Leigh Real Estate Award, at the annual Canadian Real Estate Association conference in Vancouver. It also involved a full convention package, with a free trip and a substantial cash award. The essay was published in the Real Estate Institute of Canada Journal.
From 2000-2010 I wrote a weekly column for the Belleville, Ontario Daily, THE INTELLIGENCER. Years before that I contributed feature articles on a bi-weekly basis to the CHRISTIAN COURIER.
Writing has been my hobby for many decades. I remember writing for the short-lived CHURCH AND NATION, and, also contributed to the CANADIAN APPRAISER, the professional magazine of the Appraisal Institute of Canada.
Actually, in my business career as Professional Appraiser, I had to write narrative reports on commercial and industrial properties, often amounting to 50-60 pages, including descriptions of the area, the buildings, its Highest and Best Use, and, of course, the future feasibility of the subject property. So, even in my professional career, I had to tell stories about the real estate I had to evaluate.
LEARN TO LIVE ETERNALLY
Now, in the tenth decade of my life, influenced by the swift passing of my years, and closer to the end of life than ever, my thoughts also go beyond the end of this world.
This past week has been remarkable in that respect. COP 24, held in Poland’s coal country, advocated the End of Coal, because that carbon product is the most dangerous for the Climate. The USA, already per capita the highest polluter (and very religious) is doing the opposite.
No wonder there is an air of pessimism in the world. The people who voted for Brexit and for Trump are asking: “What is the future? What is this existence for?”
All my life I have been a reader and book-buyer. Books are my passion, and now, while I should get rid of them, I still acquire more. You know what I do? At the HIDDEN TREASURES, a local store where the belongings of deceased persons end up I occasionally browse for interesting volumes available for a few bucks. I buy them because someday soon society will break down and we are thrown back to basics, such as reading real books, playing real games, entertaining ourselves without access to electronic gadgets.
My long life includes wartime conditions, when only home entertainment was available. This time will come again, because we are living on the edge already, and very, very few people are ready.
Just as retirement needs life-long planning so societal collapse requires even more careful preparation.
Already there is a point of no return for the climate. Already there’s enough CO2, carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere to make sure that it will accelerate the heating of the Earth. The warnings are becoming more explicit by the day in all segments of society. Since industrialization, since 1800, the Earth has warmed by more than 1.5 degree Celsius, with the pace of warming increasing rapidly. Knowing human nature, and believing what the Bible tells me, “The End is near”, is finally a fact.
Preparing for Eternity involves a learning process. This week I am reading LEARN TO GROW OLD, by Dr. Paul Tournier. Much of what he writes applies to the end times we now are experiencing. He specifically focuses on the meaning of life. We are in this world for a purpose: “The need to discover the meanings of things is impossible to eradicate from the human heart,” he writes, but everything today conspires to prevent us from seeking meaning.
John the Baptist, a first class naturalist, lived entirely from the edibles creation provided, eating wild honey and locusts, now seen as a most excellent source of protein. He, 2000 years ago, not only pointed to Jesus, but also to today: “PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD”, and especially, “REPENT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND.” That KINGDOM is God’s precious creation, to be totally renewed: a fresh Garden of Eden.
Eternity is not a matter of singing in “White Robes”, reigning in Heaven, as the song, “By the Sea of Crystal saints in glory stand…” suggests.
It’s entirely a ‘down to earth’ life, the full implementation of “Love God – and his creation – above all and our fellow humans as ourselves,” a process that must start in our mortal stage.
That, today, is the heart of the Gospel.
Just like a meaningful retirement needs preparation well in advance of the actual start at 60 or 65, getting ready for eternity is even more necessary. Fortunately Revelation 14: 13 tells us, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
Today labor often is a drudge, deadening, mind-killing, involving insecurity and polluting practices. The ‘deeds’ are the matters we are proud of, that stuff we delight in: hobbies, genuine interests, sailing around the world, exploring unknowns, experimenting with different concepts, cataloguing the 100,000 kinds of ants, learning new languages by reading Julius Caesar’s De Bello Gallico, his book on the conquest of France, 2000 years ago in Latin, tracing your ancestry all the way back. Whatever… Nothing will be impossible.
That’s what eternity is all about: being fully human as Jesus was fully human and fully divine.
There, by the grace of God, the impossible dream becomes reality, where our true talents are revealed. That life starts today.