Hello my friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monkey and dogs.
Welcome to another session in our series,
How Deep Is Your Love?
,
As we consider truly what love is.
Through the letter of one John.
As we begin,
I invite you once again,
As always,
Just to stop,
To pause,
To fully arrive,
And to be present in this moment.
Let's take a moment to become aware of your breathing.
And once again,
Just notice each breath arriving.
And then returning.
Receiving.
And releasing.
And as you breathe in,
Just silently pray,
Your life is within me.
And as you breathe out,
I live in you.
Your life is within me.
I live.
In you.
So over the past 10 days.
.
.
John's been quietly changing the questions we ask.
Maybe when this journey began,
You were asking questions like,
How can I become a more loving person?
But now maybe there's a different question that's starting to emerge,
And that question's something that sounds more like,
How can I live from the love that already surrounds and sustains me?
And that's a very different way of living.
Today John introduces another phrase.
That's often misunderstood.
He speaks about eternal life.
And many of us hear those words and immediately think about heaven or some place we go after we die.
John has something much bigger in mind.
So listen carefully as we read from 1 John chapter 5 verses 1 to 12 and particularly the last couple of verses of this passage.
John Wright's.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,
And everyone who loves the parent loves the child.
By this we know that we love the children of God.
When we love God?
And obey God's commandments.
For the love of God is this.
That we obey God's commandments and God's commandments are never burdensome.
For whatever is born of God conquers the world.
And this is the victory that conquers the world,
Our faith.
Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
This is the one who came by water and blood.
Jesus Christ.
Not with the water only,
But with the water and the blood.
And the spirit is the one that testifies,
For the spirit is the truth.
There are three that testify.
The spirit,
And the water,
And the blood,
And these three agree.
If we receive human testimony,
The testimony of God is greater.
For this is the testimony of God.
That he has testified to his son.
Those who believe in the Son of God.
Have the testimony in their hearts.
Those who do not believe in God have made God a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son.
And this is the testimony.
God gave us eternal life.
And this life is in God's Son.
Whoever has the sun has life.
And whoever does not have the Son of God does not enter.
Have life.
Now in my estimation.
.
.
There's a number of phrases in Christianity that have been completely misunderstood,
And one of those is eternal life.
For a lot of people,
Eternal life means endless existence after we die,
Almost like time stretching on forever.
But John's gospel and John's letters consistently point us to something much deeper about what eternal life is.
Now eternal life is certainly life beyond death,
But.
.
.
It's also something we're invited to experience now.
Notice John's words,
God gave us eternal life.
Past tense,
It's already given.
It's not just something that's promised,
It's already been offered.
And this is actually one of John's favorite themes.
The life of God isn't just waiting for us to end the journey here on earth.
The life of God is available right here in the middle.
Of our journey here on Earth today,
In this moment.
Maybe we need a different way of understanding the word eternal,
Because we usually think of eternity as endless time,
But the Greek term there.
.
.
Actually means something more.
An age of time.
So maybe eternity's less about duration and more about depth,
About quality.
Imagine listening to a beautiful piece of music.
And for a few moments,
Time seems to just disappear.
Or watch the sun rise over the ocean.
Or hold a newborn baby,
Or sit beside someone you love deeply.
There's moments when ordinary time just seems to open into something much larger and more spacious,
Something more real.
The mystics often describe these moments as glimpses of eternity.
And it's not because the clock stopped,
It's because they had become deeply present to God.
Maybe eternity then isn't somewhere else,
But eternity is God's life touching this present moment.
Jesus spoke this way as well.
He said,
The kingdom of God is among you.
Not just later,
It's now.
John's saying something very similar here.
The life of God has already entered the world in Christ and now.
That life has offered to us.
And this really should change the way we think about terms like salvation.
Salvation is certainly about forgiveness.
And it's certainly about being reconciled with God,
But it's also about awakening.
Awakening to a different quality of life.
A life that's no longer organised around fear or ego or striving after things,
But it's a life rooted in love.
Imagine,
For instance,
Two people walking along the same street.
They see the same trees,
Same buildings,
Same people.
One walks distracted.
Rushing towards the next thing.
But the other one walks with awareness.
With a sense of gratitude,
Being present and attentive to the beauty.
And to the people and to God.
Both of them are living in the same world,
But they're inhabiting entirely different realities.
John might say that one has begun to taste eternal life.
The circumstances haven't changed.
They're still in the same space.
But what has changed is their awareness.
Love has become the atmosphere in which life is being lived.
And this is one of the beautiful fruits of abiding.
As we remain in God's love.
Our experience of life itself begins to change.
Ordinary moments.
Become almost luminous.
Even things like washing the dishes and walking the dogs.
When we share a meal with someone and watch the rain fall down.
When we listen to someone's story,
I mean,
Nothing.
.
.
Extraordinary or spectacular has happened here but Everything.
Can become sacred.
In those moments.
Celtic Christians had a wonderful phrase for this.
They spoke about the thin places.
Places where heaven and earth seemed especially close.
And I wonder if they eventually discovered something else,
That maybe the whole world is.
.
.
A Thin Place.
That every moment is filled with God's presence.
And what changes isn't God's nearness.
But our awareness to God's nearness.
I think John would smile at that thought because that's been his message.
From the beginning.
Life has already been revealed.
Light has already come.
Love already surrounds us.
Our invitation then is to wake up.
And to awaken.
To another beautiful thread.
That we see in our world around us.
Now notice also in the passage that John speaks about believing that Jesus is the Christ.
Again,
Sometimes the church and Christians can reduce belief to agreeing with certain ideas.
But in John's writing,
Belief is always relational.
And this is important.
So to believe in Jesus.
Is to participate.
In that way of life.
Not to just give some sort of mental assent to it,
But to allow the way of Christ about the way that Jesus showed us how to be human.
To become our own.
And so belief then is actually a way of living,
Not just a way of thinking.
And I think this is why John's words are filled.
With such a beautiful confidence,
Because he's not trying to convince anybody of a theory.
He's actually inviting us all into an experience,
An experience that's already begun.
An experience of life that begins now and continues forever and has always been available to us.
A life that death can't end.
Because it was never dependent.
Upon a physical body.
But it's in fact a participation in the very life of God and God's life has no end.
So today.
.
.
Maybe we're not asking,
Will I have eternal life,
But instead we're asking,
How can I become more awake to the eternal life that's already flowing through this ordinary day?
And that question.
Has the power to transform even the smallest moments.
Now,
Once again,
Just Notice your breathing.
Imagine that each breath is a gift from God.
Not just because it's oxygen,
But because it's life itself.
And with each breath in,
Just receive that life.
And with each breath out,
Imagine that life being shared through you.
And hold in your heart a simple little prayer.
Eternal life is here.
I awaken to your life.
Eternal life is here.
I awaken to your life.
And as this life.
Becomes present to you and as you awaken to it.
Know that you are held in this life.
That has always been holding you.
Let's prime.
God of eternal life,
Thank you that your life isn't a promise that's far off somewhere,
But a gift for now.
Open our eyes to recognize your presence in the ordinary moments.
Slow us down enough to notice beauty,
To notice people,
To notice you.
Help us to live today.
Not people sitting around waiting for heaven,
But as people already participating in the life of heaven now.
May your joy become our strength.
May your peace become our home.
May your love become the atmosphere in which we live every ordinary day.
And may grace,
Peace,
And love go with us and remain with us today and always.
Amen.
And friend as you go into this day,
May you be awakened again and again to the eternal life that has already begun.
Until tomorrow.
God's grace and peace be with you.
Bye for now.
