The Entire Thought

On Earth As It Is In Heaven

Rainer Maria Rilke, the German poet, is often quoted as encouraging us not to excessively prize answers but to live questions. Behind this advice is a sense that we, as human beings, have not completely explored who we are and who we might become. One way this adventure in self-discovery could be pursued is by paying close attention to the questions that emerge in human consciousness. Sometimes these are questions about the adequacies of old ways of thinking and behaving. Sometimes these are questions that are tied to inklings in the present, or flashes of insight, or intuitions that challenge the dominance of rational logic.
Whenever I ponder St. John’s Gospel in general and the stories of Christ’s resurrection in particular, a number of questions enter my mind. I usually dismiss them because they threaten the comfortable boundaries of my confined consciousness. I sense that even asking them in a sustained way will take work, and living them will demand stepping off the edge of security-consciousness into a night of trust. Ordinary people may hold unexamined opinions about these questions or entertain them after a third beer. But they are seldom seriously pursued. However, once you accept that humans are only aware of a small fraction of what they are experiencing, the door is opened into a world where people can be present even though the doors are locked.
I wonder: what kind of a barrier is death? While people are alive, we often talk of a spiritual presence to one another. At least part of what that means is that we sense a reality deeper than body and mind that is crucial to the identity of a person. We presume that this deeper reality is mediated through body and mind. Therefore, when body and mind have fallen away, this deeper reality is inaccessible. Body and mind constitute “remains"; spirit goes into another world, the spirit world. The deceased is with God and at rest, i.e., inactive. However, in St. John’s Gospel
ascension and resurrection are distinguished. Ascension means Jesus is with God; resurrection means he is still present to the ones he loved. His love relationships are intact. The disciples do not have to go on without him. They have to go with him in a new way.
Is Jesus a special case? Or is the disciples’ experience of the death, ascension, and resurrection of Jesus a revelation of the spiritual structure of reality, a spiritual structure of reality, a spiritual structure in which all participate? Do all who have given and received love in this
incarnate life continue to do so after the death of the body? Is love really stronger than death?
When we are impressed with the power of death to sever ties, we often seek signs that something of the person has survived. The person may not be with us in the way they once were, but we want some indication that they are somewhere and they are at peace. It seems that we will accept the loss of we know the person is happy in another reality. Separation is presupposed. But we would like a word from beyond that everything is all right. When it comes our time to die, this loved one is often imagined as someone who has gone ahead and prepared a place and will be
waiting for us. We have all heard stories of people who are close to death seeing visions of deceased loved ones. It is assumed that they are a
welcoming committee, guiding the about –to-die person to the other side. Death means reconnecting with those whom we have loved and lost.
This rendition is often the way Christian faith in life after death is characterized. However, it is not the spiritual consciousness of
resurrection in John’s Gospel. John’s “Good News" is not impressed with the separation power of death. Jesus may be going to God, but that does not mean he is leaving his loved ones on earth — just the opposite. His death will bring about a condition in which the disciples will be able to see his abiding love clearly: “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me;
because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" (John 14:18-20). The world that sees with physical eyes will no longer see Jesus after his death. But the disciples, the ones whom he loves, will see him because they will perceive him with spiritual eyes. This will happen “On that day," the day when he physically dies.
Why will the death day of Jesus be also his resurrection day, and the day the disciples will grasp the communion between God, Jesus, and themselves? The human person is a composite being. In classical language, we are body and soul, material and spiritual. When we appreciate ourselves as physical, we know what it means to say we are with someone, or beside someone. Physical realities are separate from one another. When they come together, they do so only to break apart again. This sense of separation is so pervasive that even the moments of togetherness are haunted by thoughts of future separation. Most of us are very aware of this combination of together and separate. When we love someone deeply, we instinctively fear they will die and leave us: the stronger the sense of togetherness, the stronger the fear of separation.
However, we can also appreciate ourselves as spiritual beings. When we do this, we know what it means to say we are in someone.
Spiritual beings interdwell. They can be in one another without displacing anything of the other within which they dwell. “Interdwelling" is the
essential spiritual condition — “I am in the Father, you in me and I in you" (see John 14:10; 15:4, 17:21). In spiritual consciousness togetherness holds sway with such force that separation is inconceivable. When the physical falls away, the spiritual communion remains and takes “center stage.” This is why Jesus says, “On that day," the day of his physical death, they will realize the truth of spiritual indwelling. When the physical is present, it monopolizes consciousness. When it is absent, the emptiness can be experienced not only as loss but also as possibility. There is a new form of presence. It is not waiting for us beyond death. Even though the doors are locked, he or she is “in our midst.” On the spiritual level, we are never orphaned.

Can this be true?
How do we live this question of the resurrection?

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