Life and Death 3 - How real? ...

Friday, April 9, 2010. How real is our life? Today, we often say that things only exist if they are online, if they are in the media, if they are in the news. Something which is not reported, does not exist. We live in a virtual world. Small companies can be worth millions - when they have an impact online. Big old companies in the old economy suddenly get sold out by the new virtual reality. But how real are things which are not real? Reality is very important when we talk about life and death!

Very real things

Life and death is very real. Sometimes we forget this. Yesterday I was driving with my car for several hours - with the navigation system guiding me through the complex motorway system around Frankfurt. Somehow, the journey was a little like a computer game. I was sitting in my closed vehicle. The navigation system provided information about speed, remaining miles and arrival time. It shows a three-dimensional picture of the roads, displays filling stations and hotels, road names and further information. Somehow the world seems to be quite unreal!

But when you have an accident, when you feel the pain, when you get hurt and suddenly find yourself stranded somewhere on the hard shoulder, then a different reality takes over. Even now, it can seem unreal. There are the lights of the ambulance, the noise of the cars on the other side, the traffic jam which is caused by your own failures or by the failures of the other people who have been involved in the incident. But suddenly reality comes.

I watched the movie “the matrix” recently. It plays with our idea of reality. It shows some people who live in a virtual reality generated by a system keeping people in a state where their bodies do not move, but where their mind lives in a different world. But this world can have consequences in the real world. People can die in the real world when they die in the virtual world. With this connection the story becomes interesting.

The resurrection of Jesus yesterday and today

Sometimes we may ask how real are the stories of faith. Is the story about Jesus some kind of “virtual reality”? Is it just an idea? Is it just a story? Or is it the hard reality, that reality which you enter when you have an accident and loose a leg or even loose your life?

The bible is convinced that the resurrection of Jesus is a real event. He died, that was serious. He was dead. Then he was resurrected to life, to a very real life. He was no ghost, no spirit, he did eat and he could be touched. Of course, today we will not find Jesus living as a human on this earth. It was God's idea from the very beginning, to take him away on the ascension day. He is not some kind of zombie, but the story has a different continuation. He was taken away and sent his spirit to be everywhere and with all who believe in him. The holy spirit is Jesus with us today and tomorrow.

Is the Holy Spirit a reality? If it is, that has severe consequences. If it is not it has consequences as well, since then the Christian faith would be an illusion. The reality of the Holy Spirit is extremely important. It is God's promise to be with those who believe in Jesus. It is his guarantee and first gift, to send the spirit and comforter. The spirit can fill us and guide us, it can comfort us and help us to understand the true reality, God's reality. In this sense faith is closely related to reality and to our understanding of reality. When we get to know God in Jesus through the spirit, we live in another reality than those who don't follow this path. Both of these realities are there. ... more texts