THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 15 April 1939, Page 10

THE RELIGIOUS OUTLOOK

THE FUTURE LIFE | DOtS tASTtR HELP I S TO BE SI RE j ABOUT LIFE AFTER DEATH? (A broadcast address by the Rev. i Pat McCormick. D. 5.0.. M.A.. Vicar of j | St. Marlin in the Fields, London.) I hope that you have not had too many sermons on things connected with j the great Easter Message, and that you j will forgive me if I try to deal with i one part of it which a number of you have asked me to talk about, and that is the Future Life. I do not pretend to be able to say anything new or | startling. I can only try to state what I believe Christianity has to say on the i subject, guided by the light of such ; new truth as the Holy Spirit has been t revealing to this generation. For it is good that we should be reminded that knowledge can never be static, and it is exceedingly unfortunate that the text "the faith once delivered to the saints" is often used as if it meant that the Holy Spirit had finished His work of revelation. He is to lead us into all the truth, and truth is not only many-sided, but often mysterious in its ancient sense—something hidden but ready to be revealed. I am not going to deal j in any way with the debatable question j nr being able to communicate with ; those who have passed over, because i Christianity says little tangible about ' it. and though some well-known and i greatly respected scientists believe in it and its value wholeheartedly, they j know it has great dangers which will I make ordinary folk leave it alone, un- ; less they do it from a scientific stand- . point. It is also to be noted that some 1 people who treat it as a religion i definitely attack not only the Churches, | but the great truths of Christianity it- , self. i 1 want to say at the outset that the Christian idea of the Resurrection is i much more than mere survival; the Greeks and Latins practised clairvoyance and had ideas of a future life. But the Resurrection of Jesus Christ was a new factor in history, a definite revelation of Gods Power which ! brought hope and joy to mankind; and j it was the preaching of this which ! changed the world. j Now, though we know little on the | whole about the future life, ChristianI ity has a real message about it, and t we can find great comfort from that message as well as real warning. First j of all, a man may ask what evidence | we have for survival? The answer j surely, is that if you believe in Christianity at all you must believe in a ! future life, or the Life, Death and ReIsurrection of Jesus Christ has no meaning. God is love. He calls us His children, and loves us while here, and it is inconceivable that death should bring all his loved tnes to an end. Moreover, Jesus said to His disciples, 'I go to prepare a place for you,” and j more striking still, to the thief on the I cross, "To-day shalt. thou be with me ( in Paradise." “Thou . . . with me” —two personalities together in the future life; Our Lord knew where He was going j and that He would not be alone. That | "to-day,” too. helps us to realise that ! we start that new life straight away and do not sleep for ages waiting for i a resurrection, as people used to think, j and some hymns seem to suggest. It j has been truly said that "death is but ; a bend in the road of life.” Death is j the gateway to a new life, not to agei long sleep, and though our bodies may j be laid in a grave we ourselves—our I personalities—enter a new kind of life. ! One of the reasons why I hope when I die that my body will be cremated is because sometimes relatives and i friends, and especially children who

are too often allowed to go to the I graveside, are apt to think that those j who are buried are actually in the: grave; they go like Mary and Martha to weep at the grave, but do not see i Jesus standing outside and saying, "He j that believeth on Me shall never die." j My body may be ashes —our bodies j will all come to dust—but I, we, our I personality will enter into a new life, t But, again, a man may ask: “But i what shall we be like? Shall we just j be disembodied souls, whatever that ! may be v ” And it seems to me the answer to that is given by St. Paul j when he says, “There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body.” * 1 The natural body we know, the j spiritual we cannot describe. Our Lord, j 1 according to St. Mark, the earliest j Gospel, says “they are as angels in ■ Heaven" when refuting the Sadducees’ j question about the Resurrection, ex- i pressing a truth in picture language | which they could understand. After the Resurrection Our Lord Himself appears with a spiritual body, which makes one believe the body has a form similar to our present body by which recognition is possible. Of course, it is a mystery which will one day be revealed, but some instinct within us surely tells us that there will be recognition in the fuller life so that we may know those we have loved here, and renew our fellowship there. Do we not also picture the future life as a home, a fellowship, a communion? A stale, that is, where love reigns and we shall have objects to love just as we have communion with those who have passed over now. Is it not because love is eternal, and fellowship through God, who is Love, j so real, that the veil between this world and the next is so very thin? ! May I give you a personal experience? Last year when my sister was i just about to follow her twin sister to the future life, and be united again with her who had passed on only the year before, I felt an almost overwhelming desire to ask her to give my love to her twin, and it certainly did net seem in any way incongruous; perhaps she was there with us in the room —I don’t know; but I am sure the veil is very thin at times between this world and the next. But this I do know, her true personality is as real to me to-day as it was when she was here. Again, the question will be asked; does Christianity suggest what we shall do in the future life? I imagine we all have ideas about this, and I hope we have got over making material what has been given us in picture, symbol or poetry, such as playing on golden harps, or singing in the celestial choir, or sitting by streams ill the Elysian fields for ever and ever; for these pictures are enough to make the future life appear a thoroughly boring existence. Here a parable may help us; our Lord certainly seems to suggest in the Talents that the reward for service here will be further service in the life beyond. Our Lord, we arc told in St. Peter’s Epistle, went to preach to the spirits in prison, and as Love is service we can only imagine that we shall have the fulfilment of Love by opportunities of service in the life beyond. Rest as portrayed in the futurj life, it seems to me, can only be taken in the sense of that line in one of our hymns, "In perfect work shall be perfect rest." Again, Christianity implies that there must be growth in our characters in the life beyond. Although our aim here is perfection, no one is perfect when; death's call comes, and I cannot see j that the process of death is going to 1 make any difference to our personalities, we shall pass over just as we are. : "To be with Christ, which is far better.” St. Paul says, that is our hope i and will be our joy. so that we may be! transformed into His image from j glory to glory. But as we are not perfect when we pass over, and perfection is God’s purpose for us, it is clear that there must be growth: and as we arc given a more perfect perception of w f hat God’s love and purp6.se is we shall grow into the statue of the fitness of Christ. Again, some one will ask what about; the questioh of punishment and re- j wards of which we read so much in the; New Testament, and. indeed, in our Lord’s word?. There can be little doubt that Christianity teaches that life is a! preparation for the next; and however; much we revolt against—and rightly, | I think— the material pictures de.s-1 cribing hell. there can be little doubt that Christianity speaks j of a future judgment for all and especially those who have de- * liberately refused to live according 10l the light that has been given them. We are told that our Lord Himself, who j knows what is in man, his difficulties! and his trials, will be the Judge who! is merciful and of great kindness. And j I doubt if all the pictures of a material hell fire would be as bad as looking into those eyes of Love W’hen we have deliberately rejected Him and the highest that is in us. and we realise that He knows the flimsiness of our excuses. It is true that some of us make our own hell here and we may be pessing through its purifying fire now, but it is not all the truth. If there were no future life in which men would come face to face, perhaps for the first time with the knowledge of the despicable cruelty, inhumanity and utter flendishness of their treatment of God’s children. Love itself would not be true to its nature, there would be no possibility either or reformation or redemption, and some would say. retribution, j Once more Christianity leaches that I in the future life we shall be able to comprehend the Beauty, the Wonder and the Love of God Himself; now we know only in part, but then shall we know even as we are known. At present our vision is often so feeble, the | mystery of God’s love is only partially j revealed, but to be with Christ, to see ! God dealing with His children as ! Christ did, to find the explanation of ! nil those things we find so difficult fo j understand now, and to know Him who i is all Love and Beauty, Goodness and Truth, that is surely worth striving for and making our aim now? May I then sum up what I have been I rying to say? I have dealt, I know, only with part of the subject and only lrom the Christian standpoint, which needs, and can only be apprehended by. what is called faith, that step which we all must take beyond what is called reason if we are to achieve the Christian life, the step which God calls us to take as little children of a Heavenly Father. This is what it seems fo me to say. that through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Dcnlh is not the end of us, though it is of our natural body; that it is the entrance for us, our personality, to a new and fuller life with a spiritual body through j which recognition will be possible of those we love in the Family of God. 1 That we enter that life with (lie same

character and personality with which we leave this; that we shall not remain statis, but be given a chance to grow towards perfection. That as we have tried to be faithful here to what is highest, God will give us further service in the life to come, and there in the blessed fellowship of God’s children the/Father will reveal Himself to us, and we shall know what Love really means. For this is life eternal that we may know God and see Him face to face without sin and without shame through His everlasting Love and Mercy. And is there not a message in all this for you and me? May I suggest two things. First, the thought of the future life should keep us young in mind; this life is so small a proportion of life as a whole, it will make us continually eager to learn to be ready for fresh wonder, as we approach the gateway to this new life. Secondly, it should brace us to new effort. We do not want to go to that life shrivelled and useless personalities who have learned nothing but selfgratification, but strong, virile, living souls who have done our bit to work out the eternal purpose of God through serving our generation with His help. God knows we have made mistakes and often failed miserably, but if this has been our motive and the showing of the Christlike' spirit in our relation to others in reliance on Him day by day. He will see amongst all the dross, something of the image of Himself, and it will enable Him at the last, to make us grow into His likeness, into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ