November 1   ALL SAINTS DAY   Revelation 21:1-5

Jonathan Swift in Gulliver’s Travels invented the immortal Stuldbrugs of the flying island of Laputa. Gulliver supposed they would be wise, serene and knowledgeable because of their great age, and instead found them the most miserable of creatures, excruciatingly boring to themselves and to others. Whenever they see a funeral Gulliver learns, they lament and repine that others are gone to a harbor of rest, at which they themselves never can hope to arrive.

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990, English journalist) who lived to be 87 years of age, and referenced Jonathan Swift, wrote:

Indeed, sanely regarded, death may be seen as an important factor in making life tolerable; I like very much the answer given by an octogenarian when asked how he accounted for his longevity – ‘Oh, just bad luck!’ No doubt for this reason among others, death has often in the past been celebrated rather than abhorred; for instance, very exquisitely by the Metaphysical Poets, among whom John Donne may be regarded as the very lauriate of death. So alluring did he find the prospect of dying that when he was Dean of St. Paul’s [Cathedral in London] he had himself painted in his shroud so as to be reminded of the deliverance from life that lay ahead. Sleep, he points out, even just for a night, wonderfully refreshes us; how much more, then, will sleeping into eternity be refreshing! And then:

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die.

In our own time, Dietrich Bonhoeffer manifested a similar attitude to death, when, with his face shining in joyful expectation, he said to the two Nazi guards who had come to take him to be executed: ‘For you it is an end, for me a beginning.’ Likewise [William] Blake when, on his deathbed, told his wife Catherine that to him dying was no more than moving from one room to another. As his end approached he sang some particularly beautiful songs, which he told Catherine, were not of his composition, but came directly from heaven.” (Confessions of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim, Harper, San Francisco,1988, 145,146)

I have never thought that this life made much sense, logically speaking, unless it was part of a larger existence that transcended this mortal life. Death and human extinction without the prospect of eternal life flies in the face of the value of time, history and God’s creation. Muggeridge writes,

There must, in other words, be another reason for our existence and that of the universe than just getting through the days of our life as best we may; some other destiny than merely using up such physical, intellectual and spiritual creativity as has been vouchsafed us. This, anyway, has been the strongest conviction of the greatest artists, saints, philosophers and until quite recent times, scientists, through the Christian centuries, who have all assumed that the New Testament promise of eternal life is valid, and that the great drama of the Incarnation which embodies it, is indeed the master drama of our existence. To suppose that these distinguished believers were all credulous fools whose folly and credulity in holding such beliefs has now been finally exposed, would seem to me to be untenable; and anyway I’d rather be wrong with Dante and Shakespeare and Milton, with Augustine of Hippo and Francis of Assisi, with Dr Johnson, Blake and Dostoevsky, than right with Voltaire, Rousseau, Darwin, the Huxleys, Herbert Spencer, H.G. Wells and Bernard Shaw.” ( op.cit. 147,148)

So like a prisoner awaiting his release, like a schoolboy when the end of term is near, like a migrant bird ready to fly south, like a patient in hospital anxiously scanning the doctor’s face to see whether a discharge may be expected, I long to be gone. Extricating myself from the flesh I have too long inhabited, hearing the key turn in the lock of Time so that the great doors of Eternity swing open, disengaging my tired mind from its interminable conundrums and my tired ego from its wearisome insistencies. Such is the prospect of death.

For me, intimations of immortality, deafness, failing eyesight, loss of memory, the afflictions of old age, release me from preoccupation with worldly fantasy and free me to meditate on spiritual reality, to recall Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s remark that Christendom is over but not Christ.

And so I live, just for each day, knowing my life will soon be over, and that I, like Michelangelo at the end of his life ‘have loved my friends and family. I have loved God and all His creation. I have loved life and now I love death as its natural termination.’ [Irving Stone, The Agony and the Ecstasy], knowing that although Christendom may be over – Christ lives!” (op.cit.149,150)

Jesus spoke much of bringing to us the gift of everlasting or eternal life. (John 4:14). Belief in the Son of God grants eternal life. (John 3:16) He is the living bread. Anyone who eats him [becomes part of him] will live forever. “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day…. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me.” (John 6:54,57) Identification with Christ in his death and resurrection, by faith, results in sharing in the eternal life of God.

That life is described in poetic terms in Revelation as a “Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband…There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:2,4)

The Holy City is described in terms of the glory of God: brilliant and colorful like precious jewels, and solid and substantial as a fortress into which no evil can enter. “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Rev.21:27)

It is a place of healing and service, (Rev. 22:2,3) a place of great diversity and interest, because the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it, and the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. (Rev.21:24,25) The history, beauty, and wisdom of all the world will be represented because of the “great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev.7:9) that inhabits its space.

As a person who enjoys traveling, reading, and learning about the variety of God’s creation, and the history of the world, I would like to imagine that the life everlasting will give me unlimited opportunity to further my knowledge of God and his creation, including my relationships with others. St. Paul tells us that “we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thess.4:17) He reminds us that now “we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Cor. 13:9-12) Love never ends. There is always more to learn and experience about love. And nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ro.8:38)

All this means that life everlasting eliminates loneliness and alienation, anxiety and despair, hatred and rejection, failure and regret. In their place we will experience the fullness of life in Christ; the fullness of him who fills all in all. It is joy unspeakable and full of glory. But the fulfillment it brings does not mean boredom or ennui. English novelist Penelope Fitzgerald (1916-2000) instanced the writing of her uncle, Anglican theologian Wilfrid Knox (1886-1950) who maintained that life everlasting would be immensely interesting, because

we should be wrong to think of eternity as static, and, in consequence, boring. Why should we not go on, through all eternity, growing in love and in our power to love.” (The Knox Brothers, 262, Counterpoint, Washington, D.C., 2000)

The tree of life, which was planted by God in the garden of Eden, and represents eternal life, is made accessible to those who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The Gospel of Christ’s atonement and forgiveness is made available to all who will receive it, and live into it, by faith. “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come!’ And let him who hears say, ‘Come!’ Whoever is thirsty, let him come, and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.” (Rev.22:17)