15th Sunday after Pentecost 18 September 2022 Christ is Life
We wish every funeral ended like this one, with great joy to all who loved the dead man; but it does not usually happen.
God's plan was to give us better than that, by offering eternal life to those who have died, and then to all of us, whereby we will once again be reunited with those we love.
Our Lord referred to His mission to bring life to the world: I am the way the truth and the life (Jn 14,6); I am the resurrection and the life (Jn 11,25); I came that they may have life and have it to the full(Jn 10,10).
We could say He has life; He is life! Life and death are part of His own creation; He remains above it all; just as He lives beyond time.
He radiates life to all around. He can even bring a dead body back to life.
We are so used to death and generally things declining. But death is temporary too!
Death to us seems such a big thing but to Our Lord it is no great difficulty; He can reverse death with a word, or even a thought. He is the Creator, Saviour and giver of life.
He is the Lord of the living and the dead (Rom 14,9). Life is much more God's signature. Death is all around but it will not win. The last word will be Life.
Our life is a share in the life of God, eternal and infinite.
Far from life running down, our spiritual life can increase, as when we overcome sin and come to prefer the good to the evil.
We are most alive when our souls reflect the glory of God, and we live out the moral demands that come with that. So, for example, we do not steal because we trust God to provide for our needs.
We are alive in proportion as how close we are to God, in ways of thinking and acting.
Union with God is the key point as to working out whether we are alive or not.
We are not told what happened to the man who was brought back to life, but we can hope that he would have learned a lot more about the spiritual life and what it takes to be fully alive.
We cannot escape the physical decline of our bodies but we can make the soul flourish and expand.
We don’t have to wait till death to try to navigate all this.
Life is good; it is good to be alive. Many find this life dreary and burdensome, having no meaning or direction, no end in sight, at least that they can see.
All such limitations can be swept away by an encounter with Our Lord.
We should not be overly surprised at the Resurrection, nor become too attached to this earthly life. Just about everyone does become too attached, but by God's grace we can learn to look higher. If we are close to God then death holds no fear. Death, where is thy sting?(1 Cor 15,55).
The mercy and grace of God keep us restored and revived, and getting better.
We can use the time remaining for us to increase all the right things and banish all that holds us back. We will have a desire to be good, and to do good. Even if we are physically restricted, lacking bodily life we can still worship God and serve Him.
Eventually we hope to hear those words: Well done, good and faithful servant (Mt 25,23); Come and enter the kingdom prepared for you (Mt 25,34).
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