Rev. Dan Safarik: Eternal life is not pie in the sky

Albert Einstein once said, "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours you think it is only a minute. But when you sit on a hot stove for a minute you think it is two hours. That is relativity."

I might add, that is also about quality of life rather than simply length of time. The Bible uses a term which may be confusing in the same way. The term is eternal life. Many of us have thought of that more as length of life than quality of life. We have assumed eternal life begins in heaven and lasts forever. The good news is that we can have eternal life now because it is also about coming to life in the present.

We do not have to wait for pie in the sky, by and by.

I still remember the light bulb that went off in my head when I read in John 17:3, "and this is eternal life to know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ." Eternal life is a quality of life that begins when we know Christ.

What can happen is illustrated well through the life of Sir William Osler. Osler was a genius of a physician. He discovered many diseases and wrote many medical textbooks, but he was at his best one-to-one with his patients. One day, Dr. Osler was in a children's ward of a hospital in London. He noticed in one ward that many of the children were playing and having a good time. Then he looked in the other direction and saw there a little girl, clutching close to herself a doll and was told the following:

Her mother died not long ago. She was brought into the hospital at that time. Her father came in shortly after that to see her and gave her the little doll, but no one else has been back since to see her. Because it appeared to the other children that no one cared about her, they turned their backs on her.

Dr. Osler went to the little girl and said, "May I sit down?" Then a voice loud enough for all the children in the ward to hear him, he said, "Oh, I can't stay long, but I wanted so badly to come and see you." The little girl's eyes came alive and filled with joy.

Dr. Osler spoke to her again and asked about the health of her doll. He took the stethoscope out of his pocket and listened to the little doll's heart. Then when it was time to leave, he said in a loud voice, "We will remember out secret and remember not to tell anyone." He then walked out of the ward. The minute he was out of then ward, he looked back over his shoulder and saw all of the children clustering round this little girl.

Gordon MacDonald, who tells this story, reminds us that it is a parable of life. Wherever Christ enters in, that which is dead now comes to life -- that quality of life called eternal.

We are all called to be ministers of Christ, sharing the kind of faith that brings people to life. It is a high and hard calling, but if we look for opportunities like Dr. Osler, we can find ways that Christ would like to work through us.


Prayer: Our Lord, help us to have enough faith to believe we can be your hands and feet and voice to someone today.  Amen.

The Rev. Dan Safarik serves St. Luke United Methodist Church in Lincoln. E-mail him at stluke@inebraska.com.