The gift of God
Eternal life. To many people these days,
it sounds like such a fairy-tale, Spanish-conquistador-age ideal. Who cares about eternal life when you're a highly successful New York businessman and you've got a solar-powered cabin on a private lake in the Alaskan wilderness? At least my traveling acquaintance, the middle-aged brainiac with a PhD in computer sciences I sat next to for three hours on a flight last week didn't.
Not long after take-off, I got a hint that the conversation would be interesting. He was reading a book on astrology. I was not disappointed. After discussions--er, I just tried to keep up with his vocabulary--on everything from the vibrations of sound to computer software ethics, our discussion eventually turned to the spiritual. Blinking carefully, he calmly defined himself as a deist. Well-educated in mathematics, history, and world religions, he has concluded that there is indeed a higher being who will one day judge us. Of course, he acknowledges that we are not naturally connected with the supreme being that gave us life, and must seek to regain that connection. His methods are unconventional--he has been studying complex conjuring for over 15 years to talk to God first hand. Yet when confronted with Jesus Christ as "the way, the truth, and the life," well, that was just too simple.
He glanced out over the wing of the plane. "Religion is about control. About making money." He looked back at me and scoffed, "You can't tell me that you just 'believe in the name of Jesus' and you're saved.'" I replied, "Sir, Jesus Christ is not the same as religion. Religion tells you that you have to work to get to God. Jesus Christ is God doing all the work for man through the cross. And He himself said in the book of John many times to "believe on Him (who He is and what He has done)" as the only condition to be saved." Muttering something about "laypeople interpreting the Bible," he turned to the cheery subjects of how people are getting dumber and dumber, the government is failing, and America is on the brink of collapse.
Three days later, I again found myself having some serious one-on-one. But this time, I wasn't inches away from a pair of piercing blue-gray eyes on a crowded Delta flight. I was perched on the white porch swing outside the Seward Seaman's Mission next to a young Filipino. It was an uncommonly sunny day for Seward, Alaska. The sun had chiseled back the gauzy clouds and thick fog to reveal enormous mountains, towering over the aqua waters of Resurrection Bay. A cruise ship was in port, and several of the ship workers were spending their breaks at the mission, grabbing a cup of coffee and using the WiFi to contact home. 8 months at sea is a long time away from friends and family.
This was Jun's first time at the mission, and he wasted no time in video chatting with his wife. I watched as he paced back and forth outside, frustrated that he kept losing signal. He had finally dropped onto the bench beside me. Asking about his wife, I waded in with some small talk, and then something prompted me to dive into the deep end. "Do you know Jesus Christ, Jun?" He nodded and smiled from behind his shades, "Oh, yes, of course. I'm Catholic." I prodded further. "So do you know you have eternal life? Why?" He confidently listed off a few reasons. "Well, I do right and I'm a good person. And God loves us. His love is inescapable."
"Okay, Jun. So why did Jesus come to earth, anyway? Why did He have to die?"
Jun adjusted his red snap-back hat and cool wristwatch, mumbling. He finally turned to me, smile faded into a look of concern. "To save us? I...I guess I don't know."
He was hooked. We talked about how no matter how good we might seem on a human level, we sin. We can work and work to reach God's standard of holiness, but never attain it, because one sin is enough to make you a sinner. In God's eyes, we are spiritually dead. And because God is a fair judge, He requires payment for that sin--death. Trying to do good and follow God's commandments doesn't take away the fact that they have been broken. We are guilty and that we must pay.
Jun knew that God is love. He knew that "Christ died to save us." And he was seeing just how sinful and lost He was. But he hadn't put the puzzle pieces together yet. "Jun, that is why Christ died. He took all of your sins, the ones you did in the past, the ones you're doing today, and the ones you'll do in the future on Him. There is nothing left for you to pay, and now eternal life is offered to you as a gift." Conveniently, I had a mug of coffee in hand, and I held it out to him.
"Jun, let's pretend this is a really expensive gift--say, a new smartphone. You can have it free of charge because I paid for it. How do you get it? Do you owe me money?" Jun looked at the mug, processing. It was time to dig deeper. I asked if I could show him these concepts from the Bible in his own language, and grabbed a key ring from inside the mission that had verses in English and Tagalog.
Verse after verse in Tagalog, Jun would read the words in his own language and then explain to me in English what they meant. Using the bench as a table, I illustrated each concept with pen and paper as he talked through how the "wages of sin is death" and how "God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 6:23a, 5:8). Finally we came back to Romans 6:23. We moved past the terrible reality of "the wages of sin is death," and onto "but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord." A grin started to creep up behind his sunglasses and into his deep brown eyes. "Yes, it's a gift! This is so encouraging."
We then read Ephesians 2:8-9. I looked up and asked him who paid for it this gift, and how he would get it. He realized aloud, "Jesus did. You just take it, by faith." As we walked through verses like John 1:12 and John 5:24, the reality of "passing from death unto life" and "being called a child of God through faith" became personal for Jun. He could not stop smiling. It was if an invisible burden on his shoulders had evaporated into the sunshine.
"Jun, if you got into an accident on the ship tomorrow and died, where would you go?" His answer was clear: Heaven, based on the work of Christ on his behalf. He spontaneously threw out an arm at Mt. Marathon to our right and smiled up at the clouds: "Wow, thank you, God. Thank you for sending me here to get this gift today. This is why you sent me to this mission, so your disciples could show me your truth." What a contrast to the man I had spoken to only a few days earlier, the man who "had it all" materially but had no better answer to life than to sigh something about not hurting anyone and playing guitar music in a bush-wacked cabin.
It was time for Jun to go, and he said, "I need to keep reading these verses, to keep encouraging me." I held out the key ring to him, and he hesitated, "Uh, well, how much do these cost?" I laughed. "Jun, they're free to you! Just like the gift of eternal life you just got."
Eternal life is more than an outdated fantasy. It is "the gift of God," reconnecting us to our Creator through Christ. It gives us hope for the future and purpose to every day suffering--even miserable 12-hour days on a ship far away from home. Having it is everything. It is life.
it sounds like such a fairy-tale, Spanish-conquistador-age ideal. Who cares about eternal life when you're a highly successful New York businessman and you've got a solar-powered cabin on a private lake in the Alaskan wilderness? At least my traveling acquaintance, the middle-aged brainiac with a PhD in computer sciences I sat next to for three hours on a flight last week didn't.
Not long after take-off, I got a hint that the conversation would be interesting. He was reading a book on astrology. I was not disappointed. After discussions--er, I just tried to keep up with his vocabulary--on everything from the vibrations of sound to computer software ethics, our discussion eventually turned to the spiritual. Blinking carefully, he calmly defined himself as a deist. Well-educated in mathematics, history, and world religions, he has concluded that there is indeed a higher being who will one day judge us. Of course, he acknowledges that we are not naturally connected with the supreme being that gave us life, and must seek to regain that connection. His methods are unconventional--he has been studying complex conjuring for over 15 years to talk to God first hand. Yet when confronted with Jesus Christ as "the way, the truth, and the life," well, that was just too simple.
He glanced out over the wing of the plane. "Religion is about control. About making money." He looked back at me and scoffed, "You can't tell me that you just 'believe in the name of Jesus' and you're saved.'" I replied, "Sir, Jesus Christ is not the same as religion. Religion tells you that you have to work to get to God. Jesus Christ is God doing all the work for man through the cross. And He himself said in the book of John many times to "believe on Him (who He is and what He has done)" as the only condition to be saved." Muttering something about "laypeople interpreting the Bible," he turned to the cheery subjects of how people are getting dumber and dumber, the government is failing, and America is on the brink of collapse.
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| Resurrection Bay (up close) |
This was Jun's first time at the mission, and he wasted no time in video chatting with his wife. I watched as he paced back and forth outside, frustrated that he kept losing signal. He had finally dropped onto the bench beside me. Asking about his wife, I waded in with some small talk, and then something prompted me to dive into the deep end. "Do you know Jesus Christ, Jun?" He nodded and smiled from behind his shades, "Oh, yes, of course. I'm Catholic." I prodded further. "So do you know you have eternal life? Why?" He confidently listed off a few reasons. "Well, I do right and I'm a good person. And God loves us. His love is inescapable."
"Okay, Jun. So why did Jesus come to earth, anyway? Why did He have to die?"
Jun adjusted his red snap-back hat and cool wristwatch, mumbling. He finally turned to me, smile faded into a look of concern. "To save us? I...I guess I don't know."
He was hooked. We talked about how no matter how good we might seem on a human level, we sin. We can work and work to reach God's standard of holiness, but never attain it, because one sin is enough to make you a sinner. In God's eyes, we are spiritually dead. And because God is a fair judge, He requires payment for that sin--death. Trying to do good and follow God's commandments doesn't take away the fact that they have been broken. We are guilty and that we must pay.
Jun knew that God is love. He knew that "Christ died to save us." And he was seeing just how sinful and lost He was. But he hadn't put the puzzle pieces together yet. "Jun, that is why Christ died. He took all of your sins, the ones you did in the past, the ones you're doing today, and the ones you'll do in the future on Him. There is nothing left for you to pay, and now eternal life is offered to you as a gift." Conveniently, I had a mug of coffee in hand, and I held it out to him.
"Jun, let's pretend this is a really expensive gift--say, a new smartphone. You can have it free of charge because I paid for it. How do you get it? Do you owe me money?" Jun looked at the mug, processing. It was time to dig deeper. I asked if I could show him these concepts from the Bible in his own language, and grabbed a key ring from inside the mission that had verses in English and Tagalog.
Verse after verse in Tagalog, Jun would read the words in his own language and then explain to me in English what they meant. Using the bench as a table, I illustrated each concept with pen and paper as he talked through how the "wages of sin is death" and how "God demonstrated His love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 6:23a, 5:8). Finally we came back to Romans 6:23. We moved past the terrible reality of "the wages of sin is death," and onto "but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord." A grin started to creep up behind his sunglasses and into his deep brown eyes. "Yes, it's a gift! This is so encouraging."
We then read Ephesians 2:8-9. I looked up and asked him who paid for it this gift, and how he would get it. He realized aloud, "Jesus did. You just take it, by faith." As we walked through verses like John 1:12 and John 5:24, the reality of "passing from death unto life" and "being called a child of God through faith" became personal for Jun. He could not stop smiling. It was if an invisible burden on his shoulders had evaporated into the sunshine.
"Jun, if you got into an accident on the ship tomorrow and died, where would you go?" His answer was clear: Heaven, based on the work of Christ on his behalf. He spontaneously threw out an arm at Mt. Marathon to our right and smiled up at the clouds: "Wow, thank you, God. Thank you for sending me here to get this gift today. This is why you sent me to this mission, so your disciples could show me your truth." What a contrast to the man I had spoken to only a few days earlier, the man who "had it all" materially but had no better answer to life than to sigh something about not hurting anyone and playing guitar music in a bush-wacked cabin.
It was time for Jun to go, and he said, "I need to keep reading these verses, to keep encouraging me." I held out the key ring to him, and he hesitated, "Uh, well, how much do these cost?" I laughed. "Jun, they're free to you! Just like the gift of eternal life you just got."
Eternal life is more than an outdated fantasy. It is "the gift of God," reconnecting us to our Creator through Christ. It gives us hope for the future and purpose to every day suffering--even miserable 12-hour days on a ship far away from home. Having it is everything. It is life.
"I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
- Jesus (John 10:10)
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