Misplaced Fear

Luke 12:4 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.

I think there is one fear that is common across humanity. AT one level or another everyone has a fear of death. They might say it differently, like, “I don’t want to suffer the agony of the death process.” Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really like the idea of death either.

I think one of the reasons for this fear is that death as we experience it now was never part of the original plan for humanity. Sin has so altered the picture, that even death has taken on a color that is different from the original plan.

Remember the green lush garden that Adam and Eve were placed in in the beginning? Everything was right there at hand. Nothing was lacking. That was the design. From the text itself, the subject of death is silent, so we can’t conclude anything from the silence.

But I know in our contemporary world death still cries out for a fix. We as a society are now trying to figure out how people could go on living as artificial intelligence machines. They want to transfer our brain memories and functioning into a computer so that we continue to ‘live’ even after our bodies die.

The one problem with this, other than the technical problem which might be solved, is that we are more than our minds, more than our neurons, more than our memories. We are something quite distinct from our bodies and minds, and yet intimately connected to them.

Jesus tots those closest to Him that the body might die, but what happens to the rest of us is part of the reason for the Gospel. The body will die. But we will continue to live apart from this shell. And what we believe now will determine where we spend the rest of life.

So how are you, the real you, living your life today to reflect that fact that your body will die, but you will continue to live? Shouldn’t we be investing more in the part that continues after the b body dies?