Thanatopsis Revisited

Death became real to me one dark Friday evening. There were five of us in the car, two adults and three young boys, all of us around ten years old. The adults were leaders in our church youth group. Both worked in a hospital and had emergency training. We were on our way to join others in a weekend camping trip. Traveling east from our suburb of San Diego into the back country, a place of few houses and fewer lights. As we approached a curve, a spray of sparks arched across the road in front of us; a single headlamp wavered and crossed in front of us, then disappeared into the ditch on our side of the road. The driver braked. Both adults ran to the scene of the accident. We waited, silent with dread. After the ambulance’s arrival, we drove on. One of the men said, “There were two of them on the motorcycle. The passenger broke his leg. The other one caught the handle bar in his chest. He didn’t make it.” For years, thoughts of that night haunted me; driving at night became a silent terror. Mortality and immortality; this life and the next played a constant low-level dirge accompanying all of my adolescence. To make matters worse, the denomination to which my family belonged believed in eternal life for those who kept the rules, including all ten commandments. We focused a great deal on last-day events. Eventually, as I trained for the pastorate, I was able to lay out in exquisite (or was it “excruciating”) detail, the sequence of events which would herald and precede the second Coming of Christ. We knew that those who didn’t believe as we did would be “lost” and would eventually be destroyed forever-no hell for us, or rather being burned alive was a shorter hell than believed in by those other denominations—those “false” denominations. Vaguely we had an inkling that Jesus was involved in our salvation in some way—after all, we quoted John 3:16 as our favorite text whenever asked. But eternal salvation was an elusive target. We never quite knew whether we were saved or not, primarily due to counsel written a hundred years before by our “prophetess” who stated that one should never say “I am saved” as that led to pride. I suppose she was right, if one believes that one’s own obedience is the key that unlocks the gates of heaven. This second layer of dread made the first even more potent. What if I died tonight and wasn’t saved? I knew I would burn into nothingness in the hot fire of God’s condemnation and never ever know anything again. I suppose that is somewhat less traumatic than a forever-burning hell, but to my mind, at that time, not a great deal. The concept of “eternal” and “eternity” were fraught with anxiety-eternal life, eternal death-both clanged in my mind constantly. That future time loomed on an ever-changing distant horizon—now imminent; now distant, but always hovering. The Second Coming was supposed to be a joyous event, but for me it held only terror. Since recognizing that God’s grace is all; that He does it all, even supplying the faith to believe, the future has lost its terror for me. In addition, the words “eternal” and “eternity” have come to mean something quite different. Just to set the record straight for what follows, I absolutely and unequivocally believe that there is an eternity awaiting past the next step in God’s unerring plan. But what has been opened to me cheers me immeasurably. And it’s based on a chronically mistranslated word in the Greek New Testament. The word is aion. It has been transliterated into English as “eon.” We usually think of an eon as a long time as in “It happened eons ago. We sometimes use the word “age” or “era” for the same concept. Greek used it in a similar way: The “eon, age, era” of a ruler, for example. It could denote a period of time of thousands of years or of a relatively short period of time. New Testament translators, however, added some meanings to it; sometimes translating it as “age,” sometimes as “world” but most often as “eternity” or “eternal” in its adjectival form. In that most famous and beloved text, John 3:16, we should render “eternal” as “in this age” or “age-long” life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him might have life in this age (here and now; age-long). This is part of that wondrous Good News proclaimed by the angels at His birth. Jesus and His apostles, when speaking of the aeon, were assuring us, over and over, that the future Life has broken out, a glorious plague, in the here and now. Its rampant infection is overwhelming the darkness of this age and propels us into a multi-dimensional state of being right here and right now. Those who know not Him who is the Doorkeeper into this duality, see only the darkness; we to whom this has been revealed, see with faith’s eye, that which is invisible to the natural, unaided eye. Neither night nor blindness; depth of cave nor of sea can obscure the glory of the other side, this timeless Time outside of time. That which is to come already is. We are in a twilight zone or rather a dawn zone in which the night struggles desperately to hold us back while the light of dawn strides confidently forward toward the ultimate noonday brightness of His appearing. Death is swallowed up in victory. Even though we die, we have already been subsumed into that eternity of which I was so fearful. I can now march with confidence toward that brief night of quiet rest awaiting the trumpet blast that will waken me to that other Age, that new Eon which will have no end. Being raised together with Christ (Ephesians 2:4) you and I already share in that blissful state shadowy but assured, during which all tears, all fears, all pain, sorrow and anxiety are forever past. Welcome to eternity! 11.18.12