"To them I have revealed Your name and I will continue to reveal it so that Your love for Me may live in them and I may live in them"
John 17:26
"The Stranger," by Albert Camus, is a powerful novel which deals with those fundamental life-and-death questions that concern us all because we are human: What does God mean to us right now? What does our ability to reason mean to us right now? How are we to act as human beings right now? Is life meaningful or absurd? Albert Camus' stranger" can find no answer to give him hope, no answer to give him reason for being, no answer to give meaning to his life. He lives an empty, joyless existence. He is a stranger to his own life. He attends his mother's funeral but has no grief, worrying only that people might notice that he has none. He has a love affair which is empty because he has no genuine feeling for the girl. Finally, he commits a senseless murder and when the death sentence is pronounced he is scornful. He couldn't care less. So many people who have read this book have said, "That's me sometimes. There are times when life seems more an absurdity than a priceless gift of God."
We Christians often are accused of being so totally preoccupied with afterlife that we don't know how to live present-life for just one hour without getting restless or bored or both. But Christianity is not a life-negating religion, despite appearances to the contrary in the way many Christians live. Jesus did not come to take the joy out of life. Jesus came with Good News: life is the gift of a God who loves and cares, right now! And we really have not understood Jesus' promise of eternal life until we realize that it has already begun. It comes down to this: it makes little sense to worry about afterlife if you are not serious about learning how to live now.
There is the story of the young man who snuggled up to his best girlfriend and said, "Darling, I love you, I need you, I adore you, I can't live without you." The girl pushed him away gently, saying, "Please John, don't say such things. I don't want to get serious." To which John replied, "Who's serious?" How accustomed we grow to the "games people play" with words--saying one thing and meaning another! To that frivolous fellow, the words, "I love you" are only code-words, cover-up words. He has no intention of conveying the notion that he has any honest, deep feeling for that girl. And he seems genuinely surprised that she doesn't seem to get it. "Who's serious?" he asks.
Jesus doesn't play word-games with us. Remember the story of the rich young man who came to Jesus looking for relief from the emptiness he felt in his life? He had everything money could buy, and still his life was empty. He had obeyed the Ten Commandments since boyhood, and still his life was empty. Here was a very rich man and a good man by ordinary standards--and he was a stranger to his own life. "Good Teacher," he pleaded, "what must I do to share in everlasting life?" (Lk.18:18). Jesus didn't play with words. He told that rich man that if he was really serious about curing the emptiness in his life, he would have to take one more step. To discover New Life, Jesus told him, "Sell all you have and give it to the poor... then come and follow Me" (Lk.18:22).
There is a wonderful story about a man who got the idea of walking on a tight-rope over Niagara Falls. Other people had done it, but this man had a new twist. He was going to push a man in a wheelbarrow. He began at once to prepare for the event, even though he hadn't yet found anyone willing to ride in the wheelbarrow. He set up a tight-rope near the Falls and every day he could be seen pushing and balancing the wheelbarrow filled with stones. One day, a young man came up to him to wish him well. "Good luck," he said. "I've watched you practicing and I have confidence in you. I know you can do it." The tightrope walker answered, "Do you believe I can do this?" And the young man replied, "Yes, of course!" Again, he said, "But do you really believe I can do this?" "Yes, of course, the young man repeated. "Then you're my man. Get in the wheelbarrow!"
Now Jesus was always doing that to people. People would come to Him, as the rich young man did, and tell Him they believed in what He was saying and doing, and Jesus would say, "Get in the wheelbarrow! Show Me! Leave the fishing boats! Leave your family! Come! Follow Me!" It was always a call to radical obedience, without exception. And this is the point at which the religious enterprise breaks apart for many of us. And the reason it does is because we don't really take it seriously. We don't take Jesus seriously when He says absolute trust in Him is the price we must pay for our fulfillment.
If you are looking for answers to those life-and-death questions that concern us all because we are human, then remember two things: Be serious and be ready to pay the price. You've got to be as serious and as ready to pay the price.
A young boy in elementary school had heard much talk about his uncle, who was a great preacher. But he had never met him or heard him preach a sermon until one Sunday when his parents took him into a big Church. And there he listened to his uncle preaching eloquently on the crucifixion. The boy got so caught up in it that he started crying. He looked around, suddenly aware of the fact that not only were the people around him unmoved but they were looking at him as if he were some kind of freak. This upset him very much. As he said later, he was upset most of all when he saw the congregation walking away after the service as if nothing had happened. And he could not understand that. Now we do that Sunday after Sunday. We come here and celebrate the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of our Lord and walk away as if nothing happened. That's what is so good about some of the music and good religious art--created by sensitive persons who are trying to get through to us and help us feel this and help us be moved by this wonderful thing God is doing for us. "To them I have revealed Your name... so that Your love for Me may live in them, and I may live in them" (Jn.17:26). That is Jesus praying for us. Do you believe He can reveal God to you? Do you believe He can bring God's love into Your life? Do you believe He can make your life whole and rich and rewarding? Do you really believe? If your answer is "Yes," then don't count the cost. Give everything you have to Jesus. Jump into the wheelbarrow. Put your life in His hands. You can trust Him to take good care of it. As long as you remain a friend to Jesus, you will never be a stranger to your own life."
FR. NONY,CRM
