Afterlife

Today I am kicking off a 3-week series called Afterlife – now you might know the Netflix series where a man called Tony played by Ricky Gervais loses his wife to breast cancer, and though really depressed and keen to stop living, he decides he will keep going long enough to punish the world by doing and saying whatever he wants. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t vouch for it, but believe that at this time, God would have me speak today about AFTERLIFE – What if? What now? What next? With a new round of lockdowns, vaccination unease, the situation in Afghanistan, uncertainty and potential change around dominant world powers; inevitably thoughts turn to not only “how do we live with this?” but “what is after this?” They are big questions, and cause us to acknowledge what little control we have. This can make us feel quite small. In the year 2000, with the New Years Eve fireworks, the Sydney harbour bridge lit up with the word Eternity. Put image up. This was in honour of Arthur Malcolm Stace. After this story, if you know the Stace’s, you are going to say “of course!” But Arthur Stace was born in 1885 to alcoholic parents and was raised in poverty. He used to steal delivered milk and bread from the delivery at people’s houses and eat scraps from bins to stay alive. By 12, with no schooling, working in a coal mine, he was a ward of the state. Shortly after, he too was an alcoholic and ended up in jail at 15. His life continues along this trajectory, but at 45 he hears a preacher and gives his life to Jesus. Shortly after, when another preacher gave the message “Eternity, eternity, I wish that I could sound or shout that word to everyone in the streets of Sydney. You’ve got to meet it, where will you spend Eternity?” Arthur Stace felt his heart arrested. He believes God called him to write the word eternity on the streets of Sydney. He was illiterate, and could barely write his own name, but wrote, in beautiful copperplate script, the same that they put in lights on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the word eternity. For the next 35 years, until he was over 80 years old, he would get up at 4am, and write this word to prompt people to thing about their eternity. He tried to write “obey God” but found he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Years later he tried to write “God or Sin”, but again, just couldn’t. This man so keenly felt the weight of an assurance of eternity. His hope was firm and sure. Which begs the question “What am I actually hoping in?” Where is your hope? There is this ideology that is prevalent in our world today, that of religious individualisation. This is almost a “choose your own adventure” necessitated by the emergence of “my truth” and “your truth”. If we all get to have our own truth, then we all get to live in the result of “our individual truth” when the time comes. When the storm comes, we must be able to put this under tension, and see how firm the foundation is that we are standing on.

It reminds me of a report in the bible, when Jesus and the disciples were on a boat on the lake of Gennesaret, and a violent wind began blowing, and a storm blew up. Jesus had said “we’ll go to the other side” and maybe the disciples were apprehensive then because this lake was known for its unpredictable weather system. When it cracks, however, the disciples were terrified and feared for their lives. Understandably. The waves are breaking over the boat, and they don’t know what to do. They rush to Jesus, who is sleeping. Jesus stands up, speaks to the wind and to the waves, and it dies down to calm. Jesus turns to the disciples and says, “where is your faith?” and we read it as, come on guys, rhetorical chastisement almost, and mainly because that’s what it was, but what if for a moment we were to take it as a literal, locating question. “WHERE is your faith?” like, literally, answer that. Where is it?

So, what if we, as a part of this series, were to examine, as it relates to the afterlife, where our hope is? WHERE is your hope? Like, where is located? What’s the basis for it? What’s it been informed by? And then, as a Pastor, like a Christian pastor, I want to show you where Christian’s hopes are founded from the word of God. If you aren’t a Christian listening to this, then you just get to hear what Christian’s believe and why they believe that. If you are curious, you can be informed. If you are grieving because you’ve lost someone, you can be comforted. If you have hope, you can assess that hope on its foundation. If you find that foundation to be true, you can have a confident expectation and a peace in the midst of turmoil.

I hope that you will walk away with confidence. That the Word of God will do His work, and there will be a witness in your heart and in your spirit about next. Because HERE IS NOT ALL THERE IS. Let’s pray.

Dear Lord God, I pray for hope to spring up this morning. I pray for a peace that passes all understanding to be born in people’s hearts today. I pray that there would be a beautiful confidence and surety, an eternal security discovered here. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

I said just before I prayed, here is not all there is. However, many do actually believe that here is all there is. Kerry Packer famously said, after suffering a heart attack and being clinically dead for 6 minutes in 1990, that he’d been to the other side, and there’s nothing there. However, in order to acknowledge that there is nothing there, you would have to admit consciousness on the other side…otherwise, did you actually go there? In fact, in 2008 a large-scale study done by the university of Southampton, 2060 patients from 15 hospitals in the UK, US, and Australia was undertaken to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out of body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events. 40% of survivors of cardiac arrest were aware during the time they were clinically dead and before their hearts were restarted. They drew from this that in the first few minutes at least, after death, our consciousness is not annihilated.

People have taken this idea quite seriously for a long time, that death is not all there is. Of course, there are those, like Kerry Packer, who are convinced that it is, and often, these people end up on a spectrum of Nihilism, to fatalism.

In 2009, an Australian survey of social attitudes showed that 46% of the population believes in life after death, but that percentage increases to 56% when it is narrowed to ages 13-24.

In 2020 a study of Americans showed 72% believe in a literal heaven.

But the belief in the afterlife is evident in ancient civilisations, evidence we still have today in the form of the pyramids, where those who could afford it were mummified, embalmed, placed in a sarcophagus, believing that they would live again in the Fields of Yaku – and accompany the sun on its daily ride. Unless you happened to run into Brendan Fraser who fights ALL mummies with great courage. I have to remind myself that it’s a movie, it’s so believable, with such incredible acting. It’s topped only by Brendan Fraser’s performance in George of the Jungle. Seriously, that guy was robbed of an oscar.

Let me give you a brief rundown of held belief systems in history. I do not claim that this is an exhaustive commentary on afterlife belief, just a general outline.

For the Jewish religion, there have been different beliefs across different times and places. None are held to be canonical, that is, there’s not a comprehensively held doctrine. There are still irreconcilable differences. In the Old Testament era, the idea of Sheol was prevalent as a shadowy dark netherworld where people’s spirits dwelt. Think “Return of the King” when Aragon goes to wake the sleeping army. That’s what I thought of anyway. These spirits could be summoned up, as when the dead prophet Samuel was asked for some advice, but this was forbidden in the law. This concept was similar to the Greeks and the Babylonians. When they started to interpret sacred texts, written down, in the time of the Babylonian exile, the Jews began to develop an apocalyptic eschatology – an end times framework. They thought death was final (from scriptures like “like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die”), now they think hmm, I mean…(from scriptures like “the Lord brings death and makes alive, he brings down to the grave and raises up” and the story of the valley of dry bones). Now, the cynical or at best sceptical view is that well, they needed it. They were an oppressed people, never recovered from exile, never regained their independence and they needed people willing to be martyrs for a revolutionary movement to fight against the machine. That’s hard if here is all there is. Of course you are going to take scriptures like Daniel 12:2 speaking of everlasting life or everlasting shame and contempt, and use them to promote the cause. And this evolution of ideology takes place. The Sadducees, however, don’t evolve with them. They stay with the tradition that has no doctrine for an afterlife. So then, when the temple, their great hope for the return of the temple, is utterly destroyed in 70 CE, they have a theological crisis, and begin to examine…oh…so maybe what we had our hopes pinned on is for the next life, not this one. And then those who have not believed in the next life, such as the Sadducees – well, they’ll be lost. That gets written into the Mishnah in 200 CE. What does that afterlife look like? Gehinnom – from Gehenna, the worst place in their world, where children used to be sacrificed into the fire, where rubbish was now dumbed and feral dogs roamed, where there was weeping for the dead, and gnashing of teeth from the dogs…that that place was reflected in eternity as a place of purification for the wicked dead. Where the righteous would be returned to a Garden of Eden.

So, another ancient religion born around the same time is Islam, who believe in paradise, or Jannah, where there are 8 gates, 8 levels that you climb. Or there is Jahannam, with 7 deep temple layers, and you await the day of judgment in your grave with a taste of what’s to come, so in your grave, you begin to suffer, or begin to feel that peace. We are familiar also with the extremist view held by Jihadists, that as a martyr, your paradise consists of 70 virgins…well…psych – it’s a 70-year-old virgin! Just kidding. That’s a Joseph Prince joke, I can’t claim it.

Ancient Greeks believed that the god Hermes, maker of beautiful handbags, would carry souls to the underworld, hades. The ferryman Charon would take them if the family had left gold under the corpses’ tongues. 3 kings would then judge them, send them to either Elysium (remember Gladiator – Maximus – meridius – decimus – before the battle - If you find yourself alone, riding in the green field with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you’re already dead!) These fields were for those who’d lived pure lives, whereas Tartarus was a deep abyss, a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked, where those who had blasphemed the gods, who were rebellious or consciously evil would be laid on beds of lava and stretched on racks. Fortunately, there was another option, that of the Asphodel fields, where the plebs go, and do pleb things.

Hinduism and Buddhism have some overlap with the concepts of karma and rebirth, but Hinduism has you with an eternal soul that remains yours, and gets punished or rewarded but is able to be liberated from this cycle (called Samsara) and Dukkha – not the delicious spices served with a panne di casa and olive oil, maybe some balsamic vinegar – but into nirvana, which is freedom.

There are the Bahai, who believe in an incomprehensible afterlife, drawing the analogy that a foetus cannot possibly understand the world outside the womb, and nor can we understand life after death.

There are hunter-gatherer societies still who simply believe that death of an individual is the straightforward end to their existence, while others who are a part of ancestor cults, and name their children for the dead, but not sentimentally, rather believing that that is them. Which I don’t know how breastfeeding isn’t awkward.

There is Zoroastrianism, which believes that you are attended in the afterlife by either a beautiful maiden or a naked ugly old hag, and that is simply a personification of your thoughts while you had consciousness.

Let’s look briefly at iterations post Jesus, before we head to scripture.

There was/is the belief of LIMBO. Where babies and children go – the unbaptised, but innocent. They can’t exist in heaven or hell properly, because they haven’t sinned, and they haven’t received Christ, which for this belief, is done through baptism. There’s kind of the thought that they exist there happy just naturally, like I don’t know, if you’ve ever had an elderly loved one with dementia, that unawareness that creates a sort of innocence. But others believe that they exist there under neglect and until oblivion.

This construct is extended in the Catholic church belief of purgatory, were people either weren’t sanctified, or purified enough, so that process occurs after death, like a cleansing fire, as opposed to the fire of damnation. This belief is not constrained just to the Catholic church.

In Orthodoxy, the destination is figurative. The scourging that a wicked person receives in the afterlife is the scourge of love. It’s their wickedness that makes it so hard to bear. This great love is joy to the believer but torment to the sinner. The presence of holiness is life and amazement and awe to the believer, but hell for a non-repentant sinner. And then this concept of the restoration of ALL things – the APOKATSASTSIS – that ALL things ARE being renewed, and are unable to escape this renewal.

There is the Mormon belief that there will be a missionary effort to hell, for the release of people to Paradise.

There is the Jehovah’s witness belief that the wicked will perish completely, and everyone else will restore earth to paradise after Armageddon.

An SDA distinctive is the dead are asleep, waiting until judgment. It’s like anaesthetic, the next conscious thought they have is present with the Lord.

All that to show the commonly held belief that THE END IS NOT THE END. It’s not a smorgasbord, where you can pick and choose your best bits for your preferred eternity. That’s why we have to self-examine and say, “where is my hope?” What is that based on? Who told me that? Why do I believe that?

Here’s what Jesus said:

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV

The end is not the end.

I remember talking to mum and about finding my dad lying in the paddock after a farm accident had taken his life. I always had questions and my mum was beautiful enough to answer them for me. Some were on detail, some were on reaction, but some were on belief. I remember asking mum once “mum, did you ever think to pray for him to be raised to life”. You see mum had raised me with faith, that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever, that the same power that raised Christ from the dead now lives in me, that if I pray believing, I will see things that I read about Jesus and the apostles doing in the Bible. Mum took it as it was intended; not an indictment or accusation but merely curious and said “Bronnie he wasn’t there anymore. It was just his body. He was gone”. Mum obviously believed he had gone to his eternal life. Eternal spirits, born again to eternal life.

Jesus’ friend Lazarus died, and when he was not yet dead his sisters had sent Jesus a message to get there, stat, and make him well. By the time Jesus gets there Lazarus is dead, and Martha makes an incredible statement of faith: Jesus, if you’d gotten here sooner, he’d still be alive. However, even now, God will give you what you ask. What’s the inference here? So, could you please ask for some God for some money to help with the funeral. That’s really all the comfort you can provide now. No – she’s asking for something much greater. And Jesus affirms her – your brother is going to live. And Martha says – yeah, when everyone does. Martha is not a Sadducee, she believes in eternal life. But not wanting to assume on what Jesus is saying, she says, well, yeah, when everyone does, sure.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?” “Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.” John 11:25-27

When Jesus is getting challenged about the big claims he is making, about being God he replies, “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death to life.” John 5:24

So, if you have trusted in God, through Jesus, your eternal life has already started. And these verses are for your assurance! If you haven’t you can. And you can have an assurance about your eternity. If you are like, man, no sure – well, listen to these verses, so that you’re getting informed about the decision – it won’t make it for you, it won’t answer everything, because it always comes down to faith – but it’s information.

The end is not the end. Here is not all there is.

For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. 2 We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. 3 For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies. 4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. 5 God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. 6 So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. 7 For we live by believing and not by seeing. 8 Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:1-8

Like seriously, every time I get up off the floor! So why do we need new bodies. Well, we’ll find out next week and the week after, it’s not so we can float on a cloud and play a harp, that’s for sure.

20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Saviour. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control. Philippians 3:20-21

20 For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honour to Christ, whether I live or die. 21 For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. 22 But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don’t know which is better. 23 I’m torn between two desires: I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. 24 But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Philippians 1:20-24

Let me give you the context of this “tent” passage.

8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

11 Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. 12 So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. 2 Corinthians 4

Such confidence! That there is a day coming, when we are with Jesus, and it’s amazing. We are going to look at why, and how, and what that means for us here, in the next two weeks. But today, I have given you just a few scriptures to help you know where your hope is. That here is not all there is. That the end is not the end.

It’s way better.

In closing,

CS Lewis “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world”. What that looks like we will unpack, but today, can you identify with that statement. A niggle in you that says “I am not satisfied that this is all there is.” Nihilism would tell you it’s pointless to hope, so just deal with it and live and die. Existentialism would tell you to construct meaning. Absurdism would tell you to live like there is meaning even though there’s not, to give yourself a reprieve from the crushing reality of no meaning. If we are not made to have meaning, then why is it crushing? I put to you we are made for meaning, we are made for purpose, we are made with promise.

I invite you today to be sure of your eternity. Firstly for those who would like to put their trust in Jesus Christ. He said those who listen to my message and believe in God will have eternal life. I would love to pray for you today. Maybe you have believed in Jesus, made Him Lord, but you are not experiencing that assurance of your salvation, that eternity is secure. I would love to pray for you today.

Pray – receive Christ

Pray – be filled Holy Spirit

Church – here is not all there is. The end is not the end. IT’S WAY BETTER.