LIFE AFTER DEATH IS REAL!

Mark 16: 1-7

Just as the publishing world in our day has printed books, some fiction and some non-fiction, about life after death, so the gospel and letter writers of the New Testament were anxious to share the Good News that life after death is real! In our day fictional films like AFTERLIFE, HEREAFTER, and FIVE PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HEAVEN, or in still older films such as GHOST, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, and HEAVEN CAN WAIT, writers have imagined what happens to us when we die. There are even films such as Frank Capra’s IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, where George Bailey has an angel show him what life in Bedford Falls would have been like if he had taken his own life; and much earlier Charles Dickens published a volume called CHRISTMAS BOOKS containing short stories. One was THE CHIMES, another THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, and still others THE BATTLE OF LIFE, AND THE HAUNTED MAN. But the one story for which he is known is A CHRISTMAS CAROL, when three ghosts visit Ebenezer Scrooge informing him and warning him about how life will be if he does not change his ways. Where would Dickens get such an idea except his own imaginative mind? Perhaps he was aware of a man purported to be a physician, who we call Luke, who recorded a gospel of his Lord Jesus. Even Jesus told a story about a poor man who was carried to Heaven, or more exactly, to Abraham’s bosom, while the rich man who passed him by each day in life went to Hades. The rich man, being tormented in Hades, asked Father Abraham to warn his brothers to change their ways in life, but in Jesus’ story, the rich man says: “Father Abraham, if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” To which Abraham replies, “If they have not listened to Moses nor the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 18: 31)

Are you, today, convinced that someone can rise from the dead? Do you believe there is a heaven? Three writers from Jesus day saw extraordinary things and, in a day before film, sought to tell and record the most extraordinary events they had ever seen or heard. First in the Bible we come to Matthew. Matthew was one of Jesus’ apostles. In the gospel that bears his name, he records the visit that the women and apostles made to the tomb and how it was found empty. He also spends all of chapter 25 talking about the Kingdom of Heaven and how when we care for the least of our brothers or sisters, we are caring for him. We owe the writer of that gospel a debt of gratitude. Next we come to the Gospel of Mark, thought to be the work of an historian called John Mark, one who listened to what Peter saw and recorded it. Many people think his original Gospel stopped with Mark 16: 8 when the women left Jesus’ empty tomb afraid. If Peter told John Mark his account, and Mark 16: 7 left instructions for where Jesus would meet Peter in Galilee for a post-resurrection appearance, it very well could have ended there without further need to expound. We owe that gospel writer a debt of gratitude. We credit physician Luke with including some extra information, including the only place the Road to Emmaus story is recorded. You’ll recall that as two believers were on their way home from the Jerusalem, someone came up alongside of them and actually talked with them! It was only as they stopped for the night and he broke bread to share with them that they realized they were talking with Jesus himself, back from the dead! We owe Luke a debt of gratitude for what he included. And also we have John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who gave us information to fill in any blanks of knowledge up to the point of his writing, and to frame his story differently. It is only John who says that people waved Palm Branches when he entered Jerusalem. It is only John who tells about the raising of Lazarus and it is there that we find the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.” It is John who tells us the inscription on Jesus’ cross read: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews” and that it was written in four languages. And it is only John who leaves in the important detail that the grave clothes of Christ were rolled up neatly in the empty tomb. Why did John include that detail which he saw with his own eyes? If someone came to take the dead body of Jesus as grave robbers might have done, they would not have tidied up after their robbery!
”No” says John; Jesus arose as part of a plan; God’s plan! Jesus of Nazareth has risen from the dead; the one followers called Christ, Messiah, and King. Earth could not hold him; a tomb did not entrap him. And a stone is virtually impossible to roll back from the inside. John, above all, wanted his readers and hearers to believe what he saw. Here’s how John put it: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20)

So what will you believe? Will you believe these ancient texts, some of which were written by eyewitnesses? They proclaim to the world that there is life after death for Jesus, and his words tell us that because he rose from the dead, we too can have eternal life after death. Some people are skeptical of these testimonies, thinking that the stories have been perpetuated by faithful people and that they are not true. Well perhaps you will believe that there is life after death, and that there is a Heaven if you hear it from someone you could write to yourself! You may want to write to Don Piper, a minister who died and went to Heaven when an eighteen wheeler came into his lane and smashed into his car. In his book 90 MINUTES IN HEAVEN, he tells what he saw so that others might believe. If you are wary of the stories written by disciples, then write to Don Piper. If you need further testimonies, then read Captain Dale Black’ story. He is a retired commercial airlines pilot who was the only survivor of a horrible plane crash. In his book he tells how he journeyed to heaven and then came back. The book is: FLIGHT TO HEAVEN: A Pilot’s True Story. Perhaps it will convince you. Or if you are wary of adults, then read the new book, HEAVEN IS FOR REAL, by three year old Colton Burpo as told to his father. Colton, who died during a surgery, went to heaven, and then came back. He told them he saw his two sisters. Even at three years old, he would have only known about his one sister. An earlier sister had been a miscarriage. And little Colton told his mom that his earlier sister was in heaven, and that she didn’t have a name because they had not named her, but that God had adopted her! Read about how he saw his grandfather and described him perfectly, a man he had never met that the family called “Pop.” When they showed him his picture as an older man, he said “No, he didn’t look like that.” They then went into their old photo album and pulled out a picture of Pop when he was younger, that little Colton had never seen. “Yep! That’s what Pop looks like in Heaven!” And after being shown dozens of traditional pictures of Jesus, to which he said, “No, Jesus doesn’t look like that,” he was shown a picture of Jesus painted by young prodigy Akiane Kramarik, and immediately said “That’s Jesus!” So you can believe gospel writers, or a minister, a pilot, or a little boy. But all of them have testified that life after death is real! And it is all possible because of Jesus: who lived, and died, and lives again so that we might do the same! Thanks be to God!

Jeffrey A. Sumner April 24, 2011