The journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel has ended. We are in Jerusalem now, the city where prophets are killed. In this place and at this time, standing in the shadow of the cross, Jesus in Luke’s Gospel proclaims his belief in the resurrection. Debating with his opponents who are plotting to kill him, Jesus talks about resurrected life.
Living in communion with His Father in heaven, Jesus knows that his Father is the God of the living. For all of Jesus’ ancestors in faith are still living in God--- Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—as are all the prophets martyred before Jesus.
Because the Son of God, out of love for us chose to die for us, he has saved us from everlasting death. Because he is risen from the dead and still lives among us by the power of the Holy Spirit, we share with the Risen Lord resurrected life now.
This faith sustains us and gives meaning and purpose to our lives on this earth. This relationship we have with the Lord Jesus, the most important relationship in our life on this earth, gives us courage to go through the dark valley of suffering and death, knowing we are not alone—He is always with us.
Jesus does not give us a description of resurrected life. He does not go into the details of exactly what it will be like, but simply that it will be. We who have been called into a relationship with the Crucified and Risen Lord do not need to know the exact details. Our burning desire is know Him better, to grow in relationship with Him, for He is the Lord of Life, the conqueror of death. In Christ we taste this new life now. In Christ we already share in the beginning of resurrected life now.
United to Christ Jesus by faith, we enter into resurrected life on this side of the grave. Joined to Him in the Sacraments, we plunge into resurrected life now. Experiencing communion with the Risen Christ through our unity with other believers,we taste heaven now. Resurrected life begins here on this earth!
St. Paul points to this truth as he teaches about the transformation baptism brings: “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)
We are living this new life now in Christ, not the fullness of resurrected life, but the beginnings of such a life. In our Communion with Christ, we are tasting this new life, experiencing it with Him.
We live this new life in Christ when we choose a loving response over a hateful one; when we choose to be kind instead of rude; when we choose to forgive rather than hold onto resentment; when we choose to be generous rather than greedy.
A yearning for heaven, keeping our eyes fixed on our eternal destiny, means that problems here on this earth shrink in size and hardships become easier to bear. All of our decisions and actions are focused toward one goal, that of union with God forever. The 7 faithful brothers in Maccabees teach us that a yearning for heaven means we fear nothing on earth except not doing God’s will.
As we enter more and more deeply into union with Christ Jesus on this earth, we drink more fully of the promise of the life to come, where we will experience full and complete union with the One who is the source of all Love and Life. Marriage is a taste of eternity as husband and wife learn how to be united to one other person. However, the fullness of love in heaven is much more expansive, because living from the fullness of God’s love, we will experience a universal connection with everything and everybody, not only with one other specific person.
God gives us the freedom right now on this earth to choose how we will live forever.
If we want a life of negativity and of separation, that is Hell, and it begins now. If we choose a life of judgments and of hatred, that is Hell, and it begins now.
If we are choosing sacrificial love, then we are choosing that which exists forever. If we are choosing now to love God and to love our neighbor, then we already have one foot in Heaven.
Maybe it does not always feel like that, but in fact it’s the foretaste of this promise.
As St. Catherine of Siena so wisely noted: “It’s Heaven all the way to Heaven….”