afterlife

My junior year in college, I took a liberation theology class in which we read Jon Sobrino's Jesus the Liberator. It's been a while, but what I remember about the book, and the discussions that followed in class, is that Sobrino asserts that Jesus's life and death are what save us. I remember this because one of my classmates, Brendan, kept raising his hand to say, "But...but, what about the Resurrection?!" After all, we'd been taught all our lives that Jesus's Resurrection saved us!

Well, while as Catholics we do believe that Jesus's Resurrection is what ensures us eternal life--that the Resurrection reopened the gates of Heaven (or some such thing), how do we get there? What is it that allows us to fully embrace that afterlife? It is, as Sobrino says, Jesus's life and death as a model for our own lives. Living in the shadow and reflection of His example is how we choose to be saved, how we embrace salvation. Ulitimately, it is the life we live that is our truth. It is what we have to offer to God in the end.

I have death and dying on my mind right now--on all of the sadness and frustration that surround that process. In the last few weeks and years, though, I have been shown how to embrace the process with grace and dignity. I have been given examples of how to live until the end, how to love until the end. What more can we be asked to do? It follows the ultimate example--to live and love with reckless abandon, even when it's hard and unpopular--even as death stares you in the face.

p.s. My professor used to tell Brendan, "He hasn't written that book yet." A few years ago, Sobrino did--he published Christ the Liberator. I bought it, but haven't read it yet. I suspect it tells us how the Resurrection saves us.