A new friend told me that the human problem is that "we are alive but dying." Christians are often criticized for focusing too much on heaven--a fair criticism. While Jesus talked about eternal life by and through Him, He also focused on the "here and now"--"feed my sheep." So, Christians should focus on both. (In fact, the proper focus is the Kingdom of God, which has broken through into our time but will also continue forever.) If one ignores the question of what happens after death, one is simply in denial.
Tim Keller explains that, if God loves us, then wouldn't He want us to be with Him forever? Of course, this presumes that God is eternal, but, if there is a God, He must be eternal--the universe has been here for billions of years and its scope is beyond our comprehension. So, if there is a God, He must be eternal. Furthermore, if God loves us, He would want to be with us forever, i.e., there is rational hope for life after death. If there is rational hope for life after death, shouldn't we consider this issue rather than ignore it?
Keller says, in a different sermon, that most religions offer simply a "placebo effect." The placebo effect says that, if one takes a sugar pill which one thinks will help with sickness, one will actually feel better due to psychological effects. However, if one is truly sick, the sugar pill will have no true curative effect on one's sickness. Keller postulates that there is similarly a religious placebo effect. One may through meditation and a focus on spirituality actually feel better and live a more satisfied life. However, if this masks one's need for the true God, then the placebo effect is actually deadly, rather than helpful.
So, we should all consider the "placebo effect" of our religious beliefs, and whether there is underlying truth. For myself, for many years, I professed a belief in a God who sent His son to die for me. But, importantly, I was told that my belief should be based upon faith, which is true. But I was also told that faith was "believing in the unbelievable." This was horribly incorrect teaching. If our faith isn't sustained by intellectual credibility, we have no true faith, but rather only a "placebo effect." We tell ourselves that everything will be okay if we have faith. But, in the dark of the nite, we know that this isn't sufficient. We need truth to grasp and hold onto.
This is where Jesus' entry into the world comes into play. Jesus' life was documented by the Jews and by the Romans. So, it is clear that Jesus lived, and the important facts of His life were confirmed by non-Christian sources. What's more, of all of the world's great religious figures, Jesus is the only one who claimed to be God--He is the only one who allowed others to worship Him. So, one must wrestle with: "Was He crazy or was He God?" One can't simply say that He was a man with wonderful teachings. In assessing the importance of his teachings, one must determine whether He was crazy or God.
What's more, of the great world religions, Christianity is the only one that allows us to know the true characteristics of God through a physical embodiment of those characteristics. With all other religions, we have no "flesh and blood" to grasp, but only postulates about some ethereal being. This is why Jesus' advent into the world is so important, beyond His salvific work. His advent reveals the true characteristics of God, so that we can know and love Him. Without Christ's advent, we are left to wonder whether God is for us or against us. With Christ's advent, we know that, even though the world is full of pain and suffering, God understands fully our pain and suffering and walks with us through that pain and suffering.
The facts of Christ's life are well-documented, and they allow us to experience a faith based upon truth, not the "placebo effect." It is this true faith which allows us to begin living in the Kingdom of God "here and now," but also to have intellectually-grounded hope in an eternal home.
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