In Time and Eternity

 

From the gospel of the most sublime of the evangelists: “Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.” These are words for both time and eternity, and embody a life, developing and unfolding, that exists, even with all our troubles and failings, in joy. I would be blind or a liar to deny my experience of this life, because to “know” God, to “know” Jesus, means to be filled with love. And more than that, it means experiencing eternity even within the confines of time.

In his book The World’s Living Religions, the philosopher Archie Bahm (who was a friend of my father) wrote, “Jesus’ message was simple, practical, workable for those willing to give it a fair trial, and unsurpassed in profundity of insight into human nature and its problems of how to overcome unhappiness. Yet, since desire, greed, pride, and fear tend to dominate, and often succeed in dominating, human nature, we often remain blind to the nature and power of love.”

I certainly know desire, greed, pride, and fear, but I also know the power of love. When, in Jesus, God takes on our nature and joins time with eternity, love of neighbor and love of God also become joined as never before, giving us, to quote the evangelist again, the “power to become children of God,” both in this life and eternal life.