“I have come that they might have life to the fullest” Jesus the Christ

“The Glory of God is a person fully alive.”  St. Irenaeus

We’ve had pleasant weather the last few days in Colorado.  It’s been especially warm and sunny. Spring is aching to break forth with the chorus of new life. 

When was the last time you felt like it was spring in your life?  The last time you felt fully alive, as if you were one with all creation, with nature, with God and with others?  When was the last time you were energized with the magnificent exaltation that come from the experience of daily drawing breath, opening your eyes to the palate of colors found in creation, feeling your own skin, and soaking in the light of God brilliantly beaming in each new day?

And what does this mean to be fully alive?

In our culture the popular answer would probably come in the form of some variation of achievements, accomplishments, accoutrements, and accolades.  But is that what gives life?  Not at all.  In fact, those “things” are quite often the very antithesis of life. They rob us of life rather than replenish us.

For the early followers of Christ, what gave life was the one who had given them life. Being alive meant being in Christ. And being fully alive meant sharing in the life of Christ. St. Paul described it when he said, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”  And what specifically did it mean to live with Christ?  Primarily three things.

First, one must suffer with Christ.  “I will show you how much you must suffer for my name.” is what Paul heard in his conversion.  Suffering was part of the Christ experience.  Jesus called the disciples to take up their crosses and follow him.  This was an invitation not to senseless suffering, but to sacred suffering. The suffering of Christ was the result of Love.  Christ loved to the extent of forsaking himself and giving up his life for others. That is what makes suffering in Christ so attractive:  the opportunity to love others.  It is the suffering love of a mother who gives her life for her child, always figuratively but in some cases literally.  In suffering one learns the love of God, which was seen in His passion to suffer for the sake of others.  In suffering one learns to receive compassion from others, and in turn, and in time, convey it to others as well.

Next, living meant to die with Christ.  There are many deaths that we undergo throughout the course of our lives. Birth is a form of death, where the infant leaves one home for another.  And throughout our lives we continue this pattern of dying to one life to start another.

 As I write this, I’m only a few blocks from the burned-out skeletons of the houses that were consumed in the conflagration of the Marshall fire.  Thousands of people displaced, experiencing a death of sorts; the death of belongings and life as they had known it. To lose one’s home, one’s livelihood, one’s possessions is one type of death.  But another is to lose the hopes and dreams that we had for our lives.  When we are young, we have a fantasy-like idea of what our lives will be like.  But without a doubt and without exception they don’t work out that way.  And the older we get, the more miles we put behind us, the more objects we’re able to see in our rearview mirror, the more regrets we have, the more clearly we see the disappointments and failures of our past, and the death of the life we had dreamt of.  And we look at the losses that we experienced, all of which are small deaths.  A big part of being alive is to die, in one form or another.  For it is only by dying that one can rise from the ashes of our past to arise forth like a Phoenix; to become a living Lazarus.

That is the third aspect of being alive: Resurrection.  In the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, we’re never told what Lazarus’s life looked like after his resurrection.  But I would bet it was lived with an abundance of appreciation, acceptance, and awareness.  Appreciation for everything.  Every. Little. Thing.  And acceptance of life, and others, not as we wish it could be, but as it is.  And awareness of how very precious life is.  And how precious others are.  And how precious Christ is. And what a glorious gift of God it is to be fully alive!