Because ...for anyone who’s ever asked, ‘why?’

November 2014 www.because.uk.com

Photo: istockphoto.com

It was a dark and gloomy Scottish November night, with a full moon obscured eerily by the clouds that hung motionless in the heavens. In the ruins of the old castle four students walked briskly to meet the midnight deadline. A streetlight shone dimly against a lonely wall, and near the bottom of the wall there was the small oblong-shaped hole that people talked about.

The story was that the place had been haunted since the time of the Reformation, and that on some nights, at twelve pm precisely, a ghastly handshake would be given to those who reached inside the slot. “There’s no such thing as ghosts”, insisted Roberta as she inserted her hand into the void.

I had been waiting. It was freezing but I had soaked my right hand in a puddle so it was suitably colder and decidedly clammy. From the other side of the wall I shook Roberta’s hand. I heard her scream, and cackled for effect.

We enjoy pranks and jokes about it, ponder it in rituals and sing about it with inspirational songs. We can speculate about it and it can ignite our imagination. Movies and TV series dramatize it, books are written about it, and philosophers go on endlessly about it. It’s said that more people believe in some form of it than in God.

So, what do you think? Is there something after death? The very idea can fill us with both dread and comfort, with horror or delight. What would it be like? What awareness would we have? What memories? “Would you know my name if I saw you in heaven?”, we’re asked in the lyrics of Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven.

Most religions profess that there is a future of sorts, and that often it is determined by how well we behave now. For the most part, apart from some branches of Christianity and, of course, atheism, the quality of the afterlife is determined by the effectiveness of our efforts in this life.

Life Next?by James Henderson

One of the original writers of the Bible, a man called Paul, taught that the future of the dead could be understood only through the experience of Jesus Christ, who was crucified and rose from the grave. Christ himself gave a cautionary tale based on the then contemporary views of the netherworld, but his listeners did not accept what he had to say. “They will not be convinced”, said Christ, “even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31 NIVUK).

Paul’s point was that Jesus, the son of God, did rise from the dead, and, because of that, there is hope for the living and the dead. Just as surely as we all die, he explained, so we shall all come alive again because of Jesus. Paul wrote: “For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:22). It’s an unconditional statement, not determined by what we do or don’t do, or by what we believe or don’t believe. It’s a gracious act of God.

Christians embrace the ideas that when we die, we are safe with God, and that there is a glorious new world to come. The late John Stott, who was a compelling public speaker and a prolific writer, told the story of Joni Eareckson Tada in his book, The Incomparable Christ. Joni was paralyzed from the neck down after a diving accident in 1967. The lively, adventurous teenager became a total quadriplegic. It was a devastating blow.

In the course of time Joni found hope and comfort in the Christian faith through the words of the Bible. She was convinced that after death there would be a wonderful eternity with Christ. She said, “I have hope for a future now…it’s a time, after my death here, when I’ll be on my feet dancing.” With reference to the resurrection she continued, “Imagine the hope this gives someone who is a manic depressive. No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts and minds. Only in the Gospel of Christ do hurting people

Tibetan Book of the Dead

“…your (present) awareness, freed from its (physical) support, (is being blown) by the coursing vital energy of past actions. Choicelessly, riding the horse of breath, it drifts directionless, like a feather in the wind….Continuously, there will be grey-ness, like autumn twilight, with neither day nor night. The in-termediate states (between death and birth) will last for one week, or two, or three, or four, or five, or six or seven weeks – up to forty nine days in all. It is said that suffering in the intermediate state of rebirth will last, generally speaking, for twenty one days.”

- from Page 277 of The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Graham Coleman and Thupten Jinpa, published by Penguin Books, UK, in 2005 (translated by Gyurme Dorje)

Reformed Judaism

“Reform Judaism, while not taking any “official” position on the matter, has for the most part ignored the question, and tend-ed towards the belief that there is no such thing. The attitude of Judaism might best be summed up as “We really do not know, but if there is a life after this one, and a reward for what we do, then surely it will be dependent upon the kind of life we have lived - therefore, let us strive to follow God’s path for us as closely and as enthusiastically as possible, for then we will surely know all manner of rewards, especially the one of see-ing a world that is a better place for our efforts”.

- From http://www.reformjudaism.org/judaism-what-believed-happen-someone-after-they-die

find such incredible hope” (quote in page 151 of The Incomparable Christ by John Stott, published in 2001 by Inter-Varsity Press, UK).

That works for me. When it comes to the afterlife there are two basic options: either there is something or there is nothing. In the certainty of faith I believe there is something, and it’s better and greater than we can possibly imagine.

What happens after death, the Bible says….is life.

What happens then is another story, another article.

james.henderson@gracecom.org.uk

Photos: istockphoto.com

Atheism

“Being dead will be no different from being unborn – I shall be just as I was in the time of William the Conqueror or the dino-saurs or the trilobites. There is nothing to fear in that.”

- from page 399 of the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, published in the UK by Transworld Publishers (Black Swan edition) in 2007.

Kabbala

“The body is buried in the ground, and the soul continues on its way. Kabbalistic tradition teaches reincarnation with the un-derstanding that, in most cases, the soul is reincarnated in the body of another person who then tries to continue to correct what the soul injured in the past or to create what the soul is destined to create.”

- From page 201, Kabbalah for Dummies by Arthur Kurswell, published by Wiley Publishing, Inc, USA in 2007

Wicca

“In Wicca, death is seen as a natural part of the life cycle. It is the other half of life… there is more to life than our physical existence on this Earth, and probably there will be other lives to come, certainly there have been other lives before. Reincar-nation is a part of Wiccan belief…In general Wiccans believe that the soul goes to a place called the Summerlands, a pleasant place, and souls eventually return to Earth in another way to further their soul development”

- from page 286 of Essential Wicca by Paul Tiutean and Es-telle Daniels, published in the USA by Crossing Press in 2001.

Islam

“But announce to those who believe and do the things that are right, that for them are gardens ‘neath which the rivers flow! So oft are they fed therefrom with fruit for sustenance…Therein shall they have wives of perfect purity, than therein shall they abide forever …God inviteth to Paradise, and to pardon, if he so will …And the trumpet shall be blown, and lo! they shall speed out of their sepulchres to their Lord…joyous on that day shall be the inmates of Paradise…in shades, on bridal couches reclining, they and their spouses: Therein they shall have fruits, and shall have whatever they require…honoured shall they be in the gardens of delight (SURA 2:23; 2:222; 36:50, 54; 37:40)

- From the Koran, translated by J M Rodwell, published in the UK by Phoenix in 2009.

Pictures: Qin Shi Huang, the Emperor of Qin, united China under his rule in 221 BC. He was buried with over 7,000 terracotta soldiers, horses and chariots that he had built to help him rule

another empire in the afterlife.

Photos: ESA

For several decades, the prevailing view in cosmol-ogy was called the “steady state” theory, the idea that the universe has always existed and retains its uniform density through continuous creation of matter.

But, by the 1980s, that theory was largely abandoned in favour of what is known as the “big bang” theory, the idea (shown in the diagram below) that the universe began with a single massive explosion (“big bang”) fol-lowed immediately by inflation—expansion bursting from point zero to near the current size of the universe in a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth (10 to the mi-nus 32) of a second.

In the 1960s, the big bang theory found support in the discovery of cosmic microwave backgroud radiation, a discovery Stephen Hawking called “the final nail in the coffin of steady state theory.” Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicted this radiation, relating it to waves of gravity that leave ripples in the fabric of an expanding universe like the ripples left in the sand by waves pounding the seashore. Earlier this year, the sci-entists pictured at right (along with others) discovered what seems to be new evidence for this radiation. One report said that the scientific community is “cautiously exultant,” hailing this discovery as “one of the big-gest…of the past two decades.”

Viewing early evidence for the big bang, atheist-turned-agnostic astronomer Fred Hoyle famously stated, “A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics.” We know that “super-intellect” to be none other than our Creator God. I’m delighted that scientific exploration contin-

ues—discoveries about the fabric of our universe pro-vide us with a detailed view of God’s awesome handi-work.

The reason such discoveries are being made is that the beautiful and elegant laws of physics created by God make the universe intelligible. Cosmologists are like detectives in a quest to answer the question that God posed long ago to Job: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?” I find it exhilarating to study the discoveries being made by scientists. As I was reading about the recent ones, I found myself hum-ming a worship song most of you know (here are the lyrics—give thanks that you can’t hear me humming!):

Blessing and honor, glory and power, be unto the Ancient of DaysFrom every nation, all of creation, bow before the Ancient of Days

I hope the scientific discoveries being made will help people see that God never intended Genesis to be read as though it is a science textbook that presents details of the processes by which the universe began and now op-erates. Genesis makes no mention of the big bang and cosmic inflation. What it does tell us is that the universe was created by God out of what was “formless”—like a ball of energy and light appearing suddenly out of noth-ing. Genesis gives, in brief, the story line of an amazing creation event. The big bang theory, which resonates with that story line, fills in the details, addressing what developed once there was something brought into exist-ence by the Word of God from no pre-existing matter.Let me share with you what some world-famous

The Big Bang Points to Creation

by Joseph Tkach

Because

physicists have said of the recent discoveries related to the big bang and inflation:

• “I would say it’s very likely to be correct that we are seeing a signal from inflation,” said Adrian Lee, a Uni-versity of California at Berkeley cosmologist who is a leader of PolarBear, an experiment based on a moun-taintop in Chile that is also searching for evidence of inflation. “But it’s such a hard measurement that we re-ally would like to see it measured with different experi-ments, with different techniques, looking at different parts of the sky, to have confidence that this is really a signal from the beginning of the universe.”

• “If real, it’s magnificent,” said Harvard astrophysicist Lisa Randall.

• “Inflation—the idea of a very big burst of inflation very early on—is the most important idea in cosmology since the big bang itself,” said Michael Turner, a Uni-versity of Chicago cosmologist. “If correct, this burst is the dynamite behind our big bang.”

• Princeton University astrophysicist David Spergel said after Monday’s announcement, “If true, this has revolutionary impacts for our understanding of the physics of the early universe and gives us insight into physics on really small scales.”

• Lawrence Krauss, an Arizona State University theo-retical physicist, said of the new result, “It gives us a new window on the universe that takes us back to al-most the very beginning of time, allowing us to turn previously metaphysical questions about our origins into scientific ones.”

• Cambridge University cosmologist professor Steven Hawking wrote, “The actual point of creation lies out-

side the scope of presently known laws of physics.”

• According to Professor Joseph Silk of the Univer-sity of California, author of a recent book on modern cosmology, “The big bang is the modern version of the creation of the universe.”

• Professor Paul Dirac, a Nobel laureate from Cam-bridge University and a leading physicist of the 20th century, also an avowed atheist, said: “It is certain that the universe began at a definite time through an act of creation.” In reply, Jewish cosmologist professor Na-than Aviezer of Bar-Ilan University said: “It’s an exam-ple of Divine irony that it took atheistic scientists like Dirac…to point out the truth of the Torah. At this point I think we can say that creation is a scientific fact.”

Though most scientists do not attribute creation to the transcendent, personal agency of God as do the Bible and Christian theology, I believe that what science is discovering is compatible with the biblical account of creation. Recent discoveries in cosmology affirm that the universe had a point of beginning, which raises the question: Who or what initiated the big bang and the inflation that followed? By its very nature, science can-not answer that question, but the Bible can, and does. And so I’m smiling as I continue to hum…

Every tongue in heaven and earth, shall declare your glory

Every knee shall bow at your throne, in worshipYou will be exalted oh God, and your kingdom shall not pass away

Oh Ancient of Days!

Continually humming his praises….

I had my first love affair when I was just 6 years old. It’s true…but it’s probably not what you’re thinking.

When I was 6, I had a marvellous kite that was the love of my life. That kite meant everything to me. Fre-quently when my father arrived home from work, he would take the love of my life and me out to the front yard. Adorned with a huge ball of string and my kite, he would get it started. And as the kite soared into the Southern California sky, I watched with amazement as it bobbed and weaved in the breeze. How could life get any better? A small boy with his magical kite.

One day as I was flying the kite in our front yard, my mother knocked on the kitchen window to get my at-tention. As I glanced her way, she beckoned me inside. It was time for dinner. Disappointed that I would have to put my kite away for the evening, I began to reel the huge ball of string in.

But then something happened. The line went limp and the kite was no longer coming towards me. As a 6-year-old, I’m sure it took me a while to figure out what was happening, but the truth was, the love of my life wasn’t coming home! When I finally put all the pieces togeth-er, I did what most 6-year-old boys would do…burst into tears.

My mother saw all this playing out from the window and quickly summoned my father. I can still see Dad in my mind’s eye rushing out of the house. “Son, I can’t promise anything. But I’m going to go after that kite,” he said. With window rolled down and his left arm swung over the driver’s side door, I saw him poke his head out of the car to try to assess the direction the kite was heading. And he was off.

Twenty minutes later, he returned. He shared some of

the saddest news I had heard in my young life. He was unable to retrieve the kite.

Simultaneously, and unbeknownst to me, my mom was experiencing a new love affair of her own. And because of this love affair she suggested something that we had never done ever before. “Jeb,” she said. “Why don’t we pray about it?” So before bed that evening, I knelt down next to my mother, hands folded in front of my bed. I don’t really recall what she said, but I know she was praying that somehow, someway, the love her life…her God…would restore the kite to me.

The next morning I heard a knock on our front door. I was still in a foul mood, but I was the closest to the door, so I answered it. A neighbour I had never met was standing in front of me. “Son,” he said. “I saw every-thing that happened last evening and I felt so badly for you that I decided that I would get you a replacement kite.”

A couple of hours later, our next-door neighbour, whom I did know, knocked. He hadn’t witnessed the tragedy that played out the prior evening but announced, “Jeb, I was cleaning out my garage and found a kite. I thought you might like it.”

Finally, my dad came home from work with, you guessed it, another kite. Of course, this sudden wealth of kites left me feeling euphoric. But I also remember clearly, in my 6-year-old way, thinking that this new love affair of my mom’s—the one she prayed to—was awesome.

That initial intervention has stuck with me for the bet-ter part of 50 years. It has had an indelible impact on my life. I thank my mother to this day that she didn’t just pray for me in the confines of privacy, but openly

Photo: istockphoto.com

The LostKiteby Jeb Egbert

Believe

Photos: wikicommons

In the early twentieth century rich reserves of gold and other metals and minerals were discovered in the Kolyma region in the Russian Far East. This region, part of which lies within the Arctic Circle, has a sub arctic climate with very cold winters lasting up to six months of the year.

In the early 1930’s Joseph Stalin took the decision to open up this remote region to exploit its wealth by constructing a new highway using forced labour. The Kolyma region became notorious for the Gulag sys-tem of forced labour camps. The forced labourers were subjected to harsh and cruel conditions and those who died or were executed during construction of the road were buried where they fell. Since the road was built on permafrost, internment into the fabric of the road was considered more practical than digging new holes to bury the dead. Hence the road became known as the road of bones.

Does the tragic story of these enslaved peoples end here in hopelessness on the road of bones? Does any individual’s story, whether tragic or otherwise, end at death? God asked a similar question of the proph-et Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” to which Ezekiel replied, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3 NIVUK). The answer to the question cannot be deduced by human reason or from human experience; it can only come from God by revelation.

In reply to those who did not believe in the resurrec-tion or an afterlife Jesus Christ stated, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.” (Matthew 22:29) That power of God is revealed in Jesus Christ who stated, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.” (John 11:25-26)

Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life.” (John 14:6) The Greek word translated way could also be translated road or highway. It is by being in this road that stretches out into eternity, by being in Christ and believing in him, that all humanity can come to the Father and have eternal life.

invited me to eavesdrop.

Years later, my dad used to invite me to come along on his “prayer walks.” It was often fascinating to hear not only what he talked to God about, but also how he talked with God. While there was reverence, it was conversational. While there was respect, it was shared as though with a close friend.

That’s why I like to encourage parents and grandpar-

ents to intentionally spend time with their children and grandchildren in prayer.

It made a difference for me. It taught me at a tender young age that I could have a personal relationship with God and that he cared about me. I believe it can make a difference for your children or grandchildren, too!

Printed by kind permission of Christian Odyssey

The Road of Bonesby Eddie Marsh

Speaking of Life:

Sometimes just making it through the day can be a real challenge. There are a million and one distractions ready to derail us from accomplishing our goals. By the time we fight our way through traffic and make it home – we’re already exhaust-ed. However, life with Christ doesn’t have to be so difficult. Listen to what Jesus said: “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt 11:28-29).

Over the years, people have looked at this verse as an illustration of Jesus taking the weight of our burdens from us and making our life easier. But maybe there’s another way to think about it…

In Biblical times, two oxen were yoked together to increase their power. Typically a young ox was paired with a more experienced animal. And while the work was still hard – together, they shared the burden. As they worked, each gave and received strength from their partner. And over time, the

younger, weaker ox grew stronger and matured.

I think we can see our relationship with Christ in the same way. He offers us his yoke, calling us to partner with him. We start off weak, stum-bling and wanting to pull in the wrong direction – but as we journey with our Lord, he strength-ens us, picks us back up and puts us back on the right path. It’s not always easy, and there are many times when we fail him – but we know this: our Lord has promised never to forsake us. He is working for, and with us. That’s how we are sanctified with him – by joining in this journey, allowing him, by the Spirit, to perfect in us what our Father longs for us to be.

I hope this way of looking at that passage encour-ages you as we all continue our walk with the Triune God. We know that we can trust him to help us grow in strength and spiritual maturity as we are sanctified by and through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I’m Joseph Tkach, Speaking of LIFE.

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