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God and Me? Me and God?

   O God, you are my God—
     it is you I seek!
   For you my body yearns;
      for you my soul thirsts.

   This verse (Psalm 63:2) is an evocative description of the human condition—a restless thirsting, hungering, searching for meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.
   Please notice, though, that the starting point is God. We’re not journeying through life like an explorer in a wilderness. Life is not a long-term, trying expedition to satisfy our wander/wonder lust. We’re not discoverers stumbling upon, unearthing a great trove of beautiful ideas or artifacts, evidence of some past glory.
   Remember the Baltimore Catechism question, “Why Did God Make You? The answer was, “God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him for ever in heaven.”
   There, also, the starting point is God, but the focus seems to be more on us than on God—at least in the sense that it gives a short list of our obligations to God, the things that we have to do to achieve being “happy with him for ever in heaven.”
   What do we do when we go to confession? We don’t “confess” (in the sense of proclaim) the mercy and wonder of God’s love and providence, We “confess” in some detail our failings, inadequacies, misdeeds, and sins. Sure, it’s primarily about offending God, but the focus is still mostly on ourselves!
   Is our story more about God and Me or about Me and God? It seems like the main focus is Me.
   To quote again (Psalm 63:9):

My soul clings fast to you;
your right hand upholds me.

My clinging is feeble. God holds me fast.

   St. Therese of the Child Jesus recalled that once a priest told her that her falling asleep during prayer was due to a want of fervor and fidelity and that she should be desolate over it. She had replied, “I am not desolate. I remember that little children are just as pleasing to their parents when they are asleep as when they are awake.”
   Often children think that they somehow earn their parents love and care by their good behavior, although they are loved and cared for long before they’ve matured enough to wrestle with disobedience.
   For St. Therese, clearly the starting point in her life story was God. It was about God and Me, not Me and God! It’s about the wonder of his making of each of us, of the many gifts he has given each of us, about his guiding of each of our lives, about the beauty and marvel of the world in which God has placed each of us to live.
   Okay, we can’t overlook all our blindness, indifference, selfishness, and stupidity over the years. We can’t pretend that all our inappropriate acts never happened, that all our offenses did no harm.
   But, we can’t wallow in their remembrance forever. For God’s sake, why should we be more fascinated with our failings then with God’s continuing mercy, love, forgiveness, and new empowerments. Our life story is not about Me and God, but God and Me.

For your love is better than life;
   my lips shall ever praise you!
I will bless you as long as I live;
   I will lift up my hands, calling on your name.
You indeed are my savior,
   and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy. (Psalm 63:4-5,8)

21 November 2021

Levi Alphaeusson

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)
As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. (Mark 2:14)
After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything behind, he got up and followed him. (Luke 5:27-28)

   Either he must have been such an important person or his being selected by Jesus must have been so surprising, if not shocking, that this event is mentioned in three of the Gospels.
   Of course one of the Gospels is according to Matthew (Levi’s Christian name), so it’s understandable that he would have alluded to his first encounter with Jesus.
   But the fact that he was working as a tax collector for either the local Jewish ruler (Herod Antipas) who was a Roman collaborator or for the Roman conquerors themselves made him an outcast, if not a traitor, in his own, Jewish community.
   One thing that stands out about the story of Jesus’ calling him was the immediate nature of Levi’s response. No thinking it over, no preliminary visit to learn more about Jesus and his teaching, no submission of a resignation to his boss nor waiting for a replacement.
   The next thing that stands out and is reported in all three Gospels is that Levi organizes a dinner at his house for a lot of his fellow workers and friends—by Jewish standards, sinners all—and Jesus comes!
   The Pharisees, righteous, orthodox Jews, are shocked and horrified that a religious teacher like Jesus should be there.

   Consorting with Gentiles is bad enough, but sitting and dining together with the likes of this group of collaborators, “sinners”, goes beyond the limits of acceptable behavior for the Pharisees.
   Worst of all, Jesus is unapologetic! Referencing what the prophet Hosea (6:6) said about God desiring mercy, not sacrifice, Jesus states that “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)
   Jesus’ behavior was so shocking for the Pharisees, who were the really devout Jews of Jesus’ day, that, to say the least, they were puzzled how such a person could be speaking the words of God.
   And, Levi’s behavior had been equally shocking for all parties concerned. Dropping all things, abandoning his post and position, asking no questions, responding on the spot to Jesus’ two-word summons, “Follow me”, seemed, to say the least, an impulsive and thoughtless act that risked his future if not his life itself.
   When I was young I was deeply inspired by all this to imitate Levi. Now, very much older, more experienced, more cautious about risky and sudden decisions, I hope I still have the capacity to unquestioningly leave everything behind to follow him.
   Looking back on the course of my life, yes, I know that I did once boldly choose to do it, but how dangerously slow and careful I have become.
   I also know that someday I’ll be definitively confronted by that same radical decision, that same challenging demand to leave everything behind, even life itself, to follow him.
   May the old song still be in my heart, “Oh, Lord, I’m ready, indeed I’m ready, Oh, good Lord, I’ll be ready when the great day comes!”

7 November 2021

R.I.P.

R.I.P. is the familiar abbreviation we use for the Latin expression, “Requiescat in pace” and, coincidentally, also for its English translation, “Rest in peace”.
   In Christian tradition, it is used in reference to someone who has died. Actually it is a radical affirmation—that death is not the end of a person’s existence.
   For some people, “rest” is just a softer word than “death”, a kind of consoling metaphor. However, in Scripture it is clear that it is much more than a mere metaphor.
   In Matthew 9:24 and Luke 6:52, regarding the dead daughter of an official of the synagogue, Jesus says she “. . . is not dead but sleeping”, and then restores her to life.
   In John 11:13 regarding his dead friend, Lazarus, Jesus says “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him,” and then restores him to life.
   Both these stories are about a restoration to one’s previous life, but the story of Jesus’ resurrection is different. Although changed, he is restored to his previous life for a while, but then disappears, caught up into the glory of God, entering a new stage of life.
   This new stage of life is promised to others. In John 12:26, Jesus says “Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there also will my servant be.”
   It is this promise that inspires believers to look at death almost like sleep, to trust that an awakening will come, somehow, someday, somewhere to a fulness of life beyond what we now experience.
   This trust and confidence was the inspiration of the first Christians and early martyrs and still inspires, encourages, and consoles believers even to our day.
   Our folk imaginations and religious customs notwithstanding, we know little more about this future than the certitude of Jesus’ example and promise.
   That’s what enables us to look at one who clearly has died and say, “Rest in peace.”

   All this is affirmed in the beautiful faith testimony of the Funeral Liturgy: “In him [Christ our Lord] the hope of blessed resurrection has dawned, that those saddened by the certainty of dying might be consoled by the promise of immortality to come. Indeed for your faithful, Lord, life is changed not ended, and, when this earthly dwelling turns to dust, an eternal dwelling is made ready for them in heaven.”
   Although we often confidently speak of those who have died as already enjoying the fullness of the life of heaven, there is no clear timetable for this awakening.
   Is it right after death? At the last judgement? At some other time in between? Regarding this, too, we “know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13). But, then, for the sleeper, does the length of the time spent sleeping really matter?
   When it comes to details, no matter how we imagine life after death and no matter how commonly accepted certain traditions are, there is little that we know for certain beyond the Lord’s promise itself.
   And, that’s no small thing! In faith, we consider the departed as though asleep, not terminated. We believe that we will see them again—but exactly how, when, and where is beyond our present knowing.
   We are disciples of the risen Lord, and we trust in his word and his love.
   Sometimes we imaginatively embellish our faith convictions with too much speculation. This obscures the power and wonder of what we believe, and makes it easier for doubters to casually dismiss our certitude as childish fantasy and outdated superstition.
   We can confidently rest in peace, since we know for sure that our awakening will come.

31 October 2021

Insightfully Blind

When you think about it, the story of Bartimaeus’s encounter with Jesus in Mark 10:46-52 is curious. In a way, Bartimaeus already has more than he asks for:

They came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a sizable crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind man, the son of Timaeus, sat by the roadside begging. On hearing that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me.” And many rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he kept calling out all the more, “Son of David, have pity on me.” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him.” So they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take courage; get up, he is calling you.” He threw aside his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus said to him in reply, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man replied to him, “Master, I want to see.” Jesus told him, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed him on the way.

   You might say that he saw before he could see!
   The gospel story is clear. There was no doubt; the man was blind. He had to ask others who it was that was walking down the road that led from the town. But, as soon as he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he saw who it was.
   Never mind superficialities like how he was dressed or walked or talked—no matter. Was he short or tall, thin or fat, light or dark? Bartimaeus couldn’t “see” in the sense that his eyes did not work, but he had something greater—insight!
   He “saw” in the Nazarene a man of God. He “saw” in Jesus one with a divine power. He “saw” in this stranger the possibility of being healed and made new.

   And, what did Jesus recognize in this “blind” supplicant? That unlike so many others who saw him and were blind, this “blind” man had a deeper kind of vision. Jesus called it “faith”.
   Faith isn’t wishful thinking. Faith isn’t a kind of childish fantasy or imagination. Faith isn’t a sort of desperate groping in the dark. Faith is insight. Faith is discernment. Faith is certitude.
   This peculiar way of discernment and insight is not a matter of knowledge but of love and trust!
   Bartimaeus had certitude, no doubt whatsoever, that Jesus could heal him and give him physical vision. He was sure. He knew that Jesus could do it. He saw who Jesus really was.
   Crazy, wasn’t it? The “blind man” begging for vision saw far better than many an other who stood nearby with eyes wide open!
   But there’s more to the story: Bartimaeus’s insight—and Jesus’ gift—had consequences.
   Bartimaeus was now facing a fork in his life’s road: to follow the majority along the popular road that they thought they clearly saw or to take the narrower way that was harder to follow but for which he had insight and could really “see”.
   Jesus is an elusive guide to follow, not in that he is trying to deceive or mislead but in that his way, the right way, the best way, is a narrow path and needs to be traveled with great care and eyes wide open.
   To follow him isn’t a matter going with the flow. It requires not just sight but insight. It requires trust and confidence without reservations. It is a matter of faith.
   May the Lord tell each of us, “Go your way; your faith has saved you.”

24 October 2021

Look Where You’re Going!

Look out! Look ahead! Look back! Look what you did! Look lively! Look what you’re leaving behind! Look what’s in front of you!
   There are so many “looks” in our lives that there’s no possibility of doing all of them, but we to tend to favor one or another direction.
   Getting older, the temptation may be to indulge in a lot of looking back. It can be kind of negative if it’s a matter of bewailing the past. “I used to be able to …” or “I wish I could … again” or “Things used to be so great a long time ago”.
   On the other hand, it can be very positive, when we recall with pleasure, joy, gratitude, and thanksgiving the wonderful experiences or blessings we’ve enjoyed over the course of our lives.
   But, even getting older, we still are challenged to and need to look ahead. How sad it is to fear tomorrow and to do our best to keep our head in the sand.
   If we are living a life of faith, we have great expectations and even an impatient yearning for the future. Alas for us, if we can’t see anything ahead of us and have closed eyes and no hopes for tomorrow.
   Looking back from time to time to celebrate happy events, accomplishments, and achievements is only natural and a source of satisfaction and happiness—but it’s no excuse for not looking ahead.
   If we live, we are in forward motion. It’s shear folly to close our eyes and grit our teeth like one with no future at all. Look around all you want, but no matter what, don’t forget to look ahead!
   If you can’t see anything on your own when you try to look ahead, look for someone who can see to guide you on your way, dog or human!
   And, of course, it goes without saying that asking for help from the One who always knows the way forward ensures making headway in spite of all our limitations.

   Be careful not to confuse looking ahead with knowing what’s ahead. Looking ahead is a matter of hope and discerning our direction—but we don’t actually entirely know what’s ahead of us until we get there.
   Not looking ahead means we’re abandoning responsibility for our own future. We’re not bothering to try to control the course of our lives, we’re simply drifting and passively accepting whatever transpires.
   Each of us is a free agent. We’re free to speculate, imagine, seek, set goals, work to achieve them or just drift through life or allow our course to be set or influenced by others and their decisions.
   We all once lived like this, at least for a while. It’s called infancy or early childhood and was appropriate for a brief period many years ago, but not anymore.
   We’re not a 007, licensed to kill, but we are accredited by God, licensed to live. If we deliberately stunt our growth, if we bind ourselves tightly with behaviors that prevent us from developing, if we pretend that one stage of our lives was the best and only one and cling to it dearly, we are opting for blindness, deafness, immobility, and dying.

   O Lord, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar.
   My journeys and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you are familiar…
   Where can I go from your spirit? From your presence, where I can flee?…
   If I take the winds of the dawn, if I settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
   Even there your hand shall guide me, and your right hand hold me fast.
   (Psalm 139:1-3,7,9-10)

8 August 2021

The Fairest One of All

Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us.
Let us approach him with praise and thanksgiving and sing joyful songs to the Lord.

   Is this a good description of how we relate to God? Singing? Joyful? Praising? Thanking?
   Alas, more often than not it’s something like,
   “Let us cringe before the Lord and beg forgiveness from the One who judges us. Let us hide from him in fear and trembling, with sorrow for our failures, overwhelmed by our guilt.”

I will bless your name for ever. I will bless you day after day and praise your name for ever.
The Lord is great highly to be praised, his greatness cannot be measured….

The Lord is kind and full of compassion, slow to anger, abounding in love.
How good is the Lord to all, compassionate to all his creatures.

   Why are we so masochistic? Why do we tend to be so self-destructive? Why do we seem to find pleasure in self-denial, self-accusation, shame, and the like?
   Why, when we have a choice of what path to take, do we choose the way to the garbage dump over the flower garden?
   We need to learn to stop looking at and evaluating ourselves first and foremost. We have to learn to stop imitating the evil queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, who asks, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?”
   Why don’t we learn to look first at God and see wonder, beauty, and goodness instead giving a priority to a morbid fascination with our own limitations, failings, and weaknesses?

Why is that we scurry to find new concealment when the stone that covers and weighs down our lives is removed?

   Great are the works of the Lord: to be pondered by all who love them.
   Majestic and glorious his work, his justice stands firm for ever.
   He makes us remember his wonders. The Lord is compassion and love.

Excessive preoccupation with our own ignorance, weaknesses, and failures is a dead end street. Our Maker knows each of us better than we can know ourselves. We are imperfect, but, even so, we are loved.
The child who is scared, hurt, crying, or overwhelmed, sometimes reaches up with arms outstretched to be picked up and held tight in an embrace of security and love.

“Amen, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Let’s not think of the “Last Judgement” as a court room scene. God is not to be imagined as the All Powerful seated on a throne above. There is no prosecutor pointing the finger to each and every one of our failings nor any human jury to tender a unanimous verdict of guilty.
We need to learn to imitate the helplessness of the little child who knows no other recourse then to reach up. We need to reach out with complete trust to the One who is the very source of love itself.

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

11 July 2021

Figuring Things Out

There are an awful lot of things that we can’t figure out, that just don’t make sense to us, and that we don’t really understand no matter how hard we try.
   As a matter of fact, we live our lives constantly surrounded by things we can’t figure out—and, oddly enough, that doesn’t seem to bother us at all.
   Just because we don’t know exactly how a cell phone works doesn’t stop us from using it all the time. On the other hand, it may be able to do more things than we realize, but if we have no desire to do those things we’re not bothered in the least because we don’t understand them.
   How many of us can really explain how a plane flies? Even though we may not know exactly how, it doesn’t stop us from taking flights. But, we do presume and trust that the pilot understands a lot more about it than we do.
   It’s like going to the doctor. When we’re sick or don’t feel well, we trust that the doctor will know better or find out what’s wrong and do something to help us. We don’t have to know precisely how it works, to benefit from a vaccination.
   Whether you’re going to an obstetrician or a local midwife, it involves an act of confidence and trust in the knowledge and decisions of the other.
   The hardest things to figure out aren’t matters of science, technology, mechanics, or biology. The hardest things to figure out are other people!
   How often we’re baffled by their decisions, reactions, and behavior. How often we think or even say, “I just can’t figure him/her out!”
   Because we often can’t figure the other persons out, we can unknowingly misunderstand them, misjudge them, or react to them inappropriately.
   And, it’s not just strangers. It could be your mother, father, wife, husband, child, sister, brother, neighbor, friend, colleague, counselor, minister, entertainer, or boss.

   When it comes to our faith and religious practices, there’s also a lot of things we can’t figure out, that just don’t make sense to us, and that we don’t really understand.
   As a matter of fact, we live our religious lives constantly surrounded by things that we can’t figure out—and oddly enough, that also doesn’t seem to bother us at all.
   Just because we don’t know enough history, philosophy, and theology to explain the origin, change, and development in religious matters, it doesn’t usually bother us in the least or stop us from practicing our religion or living lives of faith.
   When we join with others in religious observances, we may not be able to explain everything, but we do presume and trust that our religious leaders (be they priest, minister, rabbi, imam, or swami) understand a lot more about them than we do.
   In religious matters, as in many things, although we may not have all the answers we do trust and have confidence in our religious leaders and fellow believers.
   Of course, religious leaders, like all leaders, like all people, are less than perfect, don’t know everything, and can’t explain everything, even though we may trust them.
   We may be baffled by their decisions, reactions, and behavior. We may think or even say, “I just can’t figure him/her out!”
   If this is the way things are with other people, how much more it must be with God (the maker, the creator, the supreme being, the source of all life and love).
   We can’t figure God out, and so God can be unknowingly misunderstood, misjudged, or reacted to inappropriately also!
   Especially with God, it’s really not about figuring things out—it’s all about trust and love.

13 June 2021

When the Hurlyburly’s Done

Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth opens with a brief scene where three witches, the Norns of Scandinavian mythology, allude to Macbeth’s future:

When the hurlyburly’s done.
When the battle’s lost and won.

We each spend the whole course of lives with the hurlyburly, with the battle, with the ever-present, daily struggle to live and to live well.
It is our duty, our doom, our fate. The Genesis story describes it as a kind of punishment for the first man (3:17-19):

Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield
   all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
   and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
   you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
   from which you were taken;
For you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.

   Our busy lives are driven not only by our desire to conform them to the will of God but also out of a sense of responsibility for ourselves and others and for the world in which we live.
   When in the course of our lives we have done all that is humanly possible, have achieved all that we possibly can, at the end we have to shift gears.
   At the end, all is out of our control. We’re in unfamiliar territory. The rules have changed.
   We face the unknown, the final stage of our lives with a mixture of helplessness and confidence, blindness and insight, fear and trust, weakness and strength, resistance and acceptance, turmoil and peace.

   When the hurlyburly of our life is done, when for better or for worse our life’s battle is over, when whatever victory we have achieved is past, we are called to a final, total surrender. This abandonment to the mercy and love of God is the final challenge of our earthly life.
   But, till that end comes, we still have to work, bear burdens, struggle to do what is right, and patiently endure.
   A farmer may trust that God will bring growth and fruitfulness to the seed, but the farmer needs to work—to plow, prepare, plant, cultivate, and be vigilant through spring and summer till harvest.
   Dying is hard and challenging, not because we lack faith, hope, love, or trust in the love and mercy of God, but because we’re used to living “by the sweat of your brow”; we’re used to defining our lives by our doing, working, accomplishing, achieving.
   In the sometimes exaggerated tales of saints, they sometimes sound ethereal, childlike, and floating in a sort of never-never land. But, that’s not real life.
   We live with total confidence in God—but to live means to work, strive, sacrifice, love, enjoy, give thanks, aid, assist, achieve, create, and many other things.
   As Ecclesiastes would say, there is a time for living, and a time for dying. We are very used to and have much experience of the time for living, but we have no personal experience of the time for dying before that unique time comes.
   When that day comes, the paradox is our life’s battle, too, will be both lost and won. We’re called to fight the good fight of life to the very end, and then we’re called to surrender ourselves to God.

28 March 2021

Remembrance Rituals

Passover is a divinely commanded remembrance ritual that celebrates the liberation of the enslaved descendants of Jacob/Israel—the Hebrew people.
   The Bible describes the repeated, failed attempts to convince the Pharoah to grant them freedom. Ten plagues or divine actions were meant to force his hand. He resisted nine, but with the tenth, the death of every firstborn son, he relented and allowed the Hebrews to leave Egypt.
   Through Moses and Aaron, God instructed the Hebrew people what to do to safeguard their firstborn sons during the final, dreadful, and decisive plague.
   They were to sacrifice a lamb, smear some of its blood on the doorposts and lintel of their dwellings as a marker to spare them from the angel of death, and make a meal of the sacrificed lamb.
   For centuries the key element of the Passover ritual was the actual sacrifice of a lamb followed by the sacrificial meal. However, after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, it was no longer possible to have sacrifices according to the Law.
   Ever since that time, the remembrance ritual changed. The remembrance now includes that of the sacrificial lamb itself, but the meal, no longer actually sacrificial, became more symbolic, a reminder of the ancient salvific acts of God.
   The Passover ritual meal now called the Seder includes various other symbols that remind the participants of details of what they are remembering of the past with thanksgiving and hope.
   Jesus’s death is tied to Passover, and his last supper meal with his disciples before his death is usually identified as a Passover ritual—and anticipatory to the great sacrifice of Jesus’ life.
   For Christians, this ultimate sacrifice of Jesus is at the heart of their version of the ancient remembrance ritual, the Mass.

   Just as on the evening of the tenth plague a lamb was sacrificed and its blood became salvific, so the first followers of Jesus viewed his death on the cross.
   Just as in the Seder the sparing of the firstborn of the Hebrews and their liberation is remembered and symbolically celebrated, so too in the Mass, our being spared and liberated by the death of Jesus is remembered and symbolically celebrated.
   Jesus himself gave the remembrance symbols to his followers: the broken bread, shared by all at the table, this was his body, broken for their and our salvation—the cup of wine, shared by all at table, this was his blood, shed for their and our salvation.
   “Do this in remembrance of me.” he said.
   This remembrance ritual, rooted in the Passover and associated with the Resurrection, began to be enacted every Lord’s Day (Sunday), not just once a year at Passover (Easter) time. It even became a daily ritual for many.
   Because of centuries of theologizing and analyzing of the specifics of the ritual and the meaning of the Lord’s words, as well as great religious divisions about the matter, emphasis was placed on transubstantiation and real presence.
   An unintended consequence has been less attention to the significance of the remembrance ritual’s principal symbolic actions, the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the wine.
   Liturgical reforms in the last century were not so much refinements of complex ceremonials, elaborate vesture, and special architectural arrangements as a challenge to us to rebalance our understanding of this core remembrance ritual of our lives.

21 March 2021

The Devil Is in the Details

It’s a familiar expression—which curiously enough seems to have nothing at all to do with the idea of a powerful evil spirit lurking behind the scenes to exert some kind of malign influence.
In fact, is seems to be rooted in an old Germanic proverb which actually was “The good God is in the detail”!
In any case what it often means is “something might seem simple at a first look but will take more time and effort to complete than expected”.
What brought it to mind for me was thinking about what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians about the Day of the Lord.
His first letter to the Thessalonians actually is the earliest written document we have in the Christian scriptures (the New Testament). It probably dates from about 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Thessalonica, the principal city of Macedonia, today is the second largest city of Greece. It was the first European city that St. Paul visited during his second missionary journey, after his experiences in Asia Minor (modern Turkey).
The simple folk there who had welcomed the good news of Jesus and who were looking forward to his imminent return in glory had a serious concern: what would happen to those who died before his return and would not be alive to welcome him?
Paul wrote to them (1 Thess 4:13-17):

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose, so too will God, through Jesus, bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not

precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

“Fallen asleep”, of course means “died”; it was a common euphemism. Paul was reassuring them that those who died before the second coming of the Lord would not be disadvantaged when the Day of the Lord came.
But, with all due respect, although we share his conviction, the descriptive details he added were somewhat imaginative!
However, we still use his metaphor of sleep to describe death:
We display the body in the casket as though asleep. We place the casket in a cemetery (the word comes from the Greek for a sleeping place). We pray, “Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord.” We sometimes mark the tombstone with “R.I.P” (Rest In Peace).
A common usage in science-fiction uses the metaphor in slightly different way. The space voyager is placed in “suspended animation” for a journey often longer than a lifetime, to be awakened when the final destination is reached.
“Faith” is a curious thing. It is a certainty, but not of the same breed as “knowledge”.
With “knowledge” we usually go step-by-step with the details to get to the conclusion.
With “faith” we have certainty without the details. We have to leave them to the Devil—whoops, I mean, to God!

1 November 2020

(Available in
Spanish translation)