You are wisdom
You are peace
You are beauty
You are eternal life.
~Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1181-1226)
When Jesus had spoken these words, He lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify You, since You have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they know You the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave Me to do. And now, Father, glorify Me in Your own presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.
~ Jesus, LORD of creation, talking to His Dad, in John 17
There is, beloved, a truth that is simply not knowable until one believes it. Eternal life is now. It is Him. And it is simply true that to know Him is to already be in simple, real, glorious ever-expanding moment with Him.
The phone-booth-like existence we sense now is but a construct within the superstructure of the overall existence He has created. For actually, G_d does not exist.
Now, don’t jump off the page too fast dear reader…
G_d does not exist, rather He has created infinity and eternity for the purpose of interfacing with the existence within that unmeasurable space. Existence itself falters as it both falls into and flees from the Locus of the Presence of the One who has spoken it into existence and holds it together.
And it is this One in whom we believe. And it is this One who does fully dwell within us. We are filled with the very fullness of G_d. We are indwelt by, and made one with the One who is simply bigger than infinity.
So, to say it even more simply. G_d is not on the other side of some veil. Eternity and heaven is not time on some amazingly grander scale. Eternity is already within Him. And He is already within us. And while this is, perhaps, the most profound of the profound mysteries of the Gospel – it is simply and profoundly true.
Can we see it? He is eternal life. Life in Him is not a quantity of years. Eternal Life is a quality of existence in relationship with Him that transcends time. Time will be contained WITHIN our relationship with Him. We are not constrained to endless years with Him, walking down some path gazing into some endless future. No, we are to be so one with Him so as to be those who actually reign over time and space itself.
This fool of a writer has seen a bit of this in his more quiet moments, when he is really listening to the One who is the Author and Finisher of this whole thing. he too, has seen that His Word substantiates the personal experiences of one who is but a man. So, may this fool preach for a moment? There is, beloved, absolutely nothing to worry about. All is well if we are in Him. And by looking to Him with everything we are (even though that is not very much) He is both very able and very willing to keep us in this beautiful moment with Himself forever.
You are in Him. He is in You. All is well.
Oh my!
Yeah. Now you are beginning to see.
