Life Goes On
Life goes on, doesn't it, indeed, that's what it's all about, isn't it, life going on. "Anthony passed away this evening at 5:30," last evening's text says, "Elizabeth was with him and said it was very peaceful." And life goes on because we are fruitful, and multiply, and replenish.
"26 And God said, Let us make אָדָ֛ם mankind in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created אָדָ֛ם in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." Genesis 1 (KJV)
A sophisticated fellow, P, so-called, the presumed priestly writer whom scholars say wrote the first chapter of the story of creation, featuring us humans as the Creator's ultimate, proudest, central achievement. "Man" the translation has it, אָדָ֛ם adam, mankind, human beings, people, and this, we, are, or in Time will be, what God is like, the image of God. Nice job, eh?
Really nice job. I've seen a photograph of a portrait painted by my granddaughter Charlotte, that at first glance I thought was a color photograph, it's that perfect a likeness. Even after being told, no, she painted it, I was incredulous, I really could not tell, a true image. And we, all of us, are true images of God? Unbelievable, but Jesus said, "if you've seen me, you've seen the Father." And it's translatable: seeking Christ in all persons, and Christ is the image of God the Father, seeing another person, we see God - - there's nothing else, other, or different to search for. So, God is anthropomorphic after all, the Ancient One of Daniel Seven.
The story picks up anew in the next chapters of creation, when we eat from the forbidden tree, as our mischievous God most certainly and lovingly intended in order to have a companion instead of a pet. But, as the story goes on to say, he kicked us out of dreamland before we ate from the other forbidden tree and seized eternal life.
People have religions, in part because, as Friedrich Schleiermacher wrote, there is implanted in each of us a sense of the infinite, so we have an intuition about God; but consciously because early man looked up and around and couldn't explain what s/he saw, and someone started fascinating the tribe with imaginative campfire stories. And also, as someone else wrote, there will be religion as long as people are afraid of death.
If religion is faith and hope, oblivion is the total absence of being, no consciousness, no awareness of other or self, nothing, nothingness, not. Sleep without dreams, no fears, no pain, no memories. The P writer makes no promises, and even Paul visualizes sleep in Jesus until the trumpet sounds. Meanwhile life itself goes on.
Anthony and I worked together in his assignment his first year after seminary, when he was ordained deacon and then priest. Retiring as he was beginning, I was his mentor until, at his ordination as priest, Anthony designated me "Mentor Emeritus". Summer 2008 through Spring 2009, it was a year of struggle and great tension for him, which I didn't understand until later. But he made it, and life went on, and goes on.