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Deutsche Version | Wiki Start | Topics Collection ii

Life and Death 1 - Life cycle and perspectives ...

Wednesday, April 7, 2010. We had the Easter celebrations last weekend and it is a time to speak about death and life. Good Friday is a day where Christians celebrate the death of Jesus. Easter Sunday is a day where we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus - new life in the middle of a dying world. But let us start one step earlier - let us talk about our life cycle.

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Our life cycle

Humans are born as little babies. We start our life not as finished individuals, not as mature beings, but as infants. Then, we grow. We learn. We start to develop. It is extremely fascinating to see humans grow up.

But there is another side to our life cycle. We become mature, grow into a state which we call adults. Then we live for a while, usually, before we become old. The last part of the human life cycle is the time when we are retired “elder statesmen”, when we are pensioners. Then we die.

Human life is limited - but somehow our mind is not. We usually do not live with a clear understanding of the clear limits of our life. We try to ignore death. We ignore age. We life as if it would always go on. We make plans. We collect wealth or fame. It will not help us any more after our death - still we act as if we need it for eternity.

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The bible gives good reasons why human life is limited. It was God's decision to limit our life expectancy after mankind was separated from the eternal God. He created death, and with it illness and suffering. All illness and suffering points to the state where life ends. We do not want to learn that there are limits. But God gave us illness and suffering to teach us the truth!

God's perspective

But it is not the end to speak about death. From the very beginning God wanted to give life an eternal perspective. He did not want humans to die. But he wants us to live in a truly good way, such that eternity is worth it. God's perspective is eternal life.

The bible calls it salvation, when we are saved from the perspective of death. It is carried out by faith. Eternal life is given by faith through Christ Jesus. The events which are celebrated by Easter made this perspective concrete. Jesus was raised from the dead into a new existence, into a new creation, which does not know death any more.

When we want to understand God's perspective as worked out in the New Testament, we need to open our mind for eternity. Eternity is not just a continuation of what was before. Eternity is a new creation, one that started with the resurrection of Jesus. Eternity is a community of faith, of trust, of reliability and solidarity. There will be no misuse any more in eternity. There will be no lies, no theft, no suffering. A new world is about to come - it is different from the old world. But it is already starting here, with the community of faith. ... more texts

jn_en_2010_04_07.txt · Last modified: 2017/06/18 16:48 by 127.0.0.1