The sense of Eternity

THE WORD IN LENT - 5th week, Thursday

April 2, 2020: Genesis 17:3-9; John 8:51-59
Point of Dialogue #29: The passing existence and the lasting eternity

It would have been a shocker, when Jesus said, "Before ever Abraham was, I AM." In this, apart from the statement on the divine participation of Jesus in the One who sent him, there is an important message for each of us and our identity. Specially when we are so absorbed in our fear and anxiety of the situation around, the spreading disease and the threatening death!

The first reading establishes the foundation for this message, as it reminds us of the covenant made with Abraham. We are made sons and daughters of God, in faith. And Jesus assures that, 'if we keep the covenant; if we keep the Word; we will always be sons and daughters of the Lord; we will partake in the eternal life of God.' The Jews were unable to understand that part of it, because they did not have an idea of the eternal life that Jesus was speaking of. 

For us today, it should not be anymore as strange as it was for the Jews. Because Jesus has proved it for us in his own life, death and resurrection - that paschal mystery invites a dialogue between our momentary anxieties and the never failing hope, the passing existence and our lasting eternity.

We believe in resurrection and in life everlasting! And what matters within eternity is not who came first and who came next, but what relationship and what intensity of commitment one shows in relating to God our Father and Mother, who loves us into existence and watches over us every moment. Come what may, discomfort or disease or even death...what matters is that eternal, timeless, unchanging, absolute relatedness to God. 

For Jesus, that relatedness was absolute; that defined everything that mattered to him! And it is to that same absolute sense of relatedness to God, that Jesus calls us his brothers and sisters... it comes with a strong sense of eternity!