No-one knows what happens after death. The suicide bombers of Islam seem to think that they are going to Paradise; but I very much fear that after death, if they are conscious at all, they will find that their Paradise existed only in their imaginations, and nowhere else. Christians too think they are going to be welcomed into heaven by the Jesus, on whom they have lavished praise all their lives. Maybe; but I very much fear that unless they have shown a modicum of courage, there is a risk he will disown them. Jung often found with his mental patients that their thoughts of what would happen after death were merely the elements of human personality, that had remained unlived in this world, welling up from the unconscious. Could it be the same for those of us, who think we are sane? Even if one has courage, many of our dreams must necessarily remain partly or wholly unfulfilled; and even in old-age one tends to day-dream about what one might have done. Who is to say that thoughts of life after death are not just an extension of that process. Is it not enough to say that one has tried to do one’s duty, and that it is for God to decide what is best? As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes, one should fear God and obey His commands; and that is all one can do. Eternity without Him would be hell. It is for Him to decide if He wants an eternity with us. Maybe one should have courage not to enquire too nicely?
I think the worst accusation that can be levelled against the Church is that it has defaulted on its mission of enabling men and women to become whole. In doing so, it has failed both church-members, civilisation and the religious urge which is deep-seated in human nature. Some people would be unkind enough to say it had betrayed this trust; this is the view expressed in Piers the Ploughman, the Medieval novel, that the clergy had betrayed the City of God to the enemy – Evil. The Church has trained men to become monks in monasteries, not men who can play a confident part in the world of affairs. And what use were monks, when the Saxons invaded Britain, and all the best brains were in cloisters? What you want in a world, which is in dire peril from many dangers, is men with the courage and initiative of Jesus, in a world very different from the one he knew. Where are we going to find them?
Is it going to be possible to find them among those who have the courage to think that the Incarnation includes them? Of course it is! Because then your imitation will not be a slavish imitation, a creeping in the Master’s footprints; it will be an imitation that attempts to display his courage and initiative. You can only do this, if you believe you have a communion with Jesus (which the communion service offers), or a communion with the Father, the Creator, as well as Jesus, (which is what Jesus promised in his Last Discourses). And who dare say what such a life will be like, or what beliefs he may legitimately hold? He will obey the Spirit within, not some antiquated creed thought up in response to a summons by a Roman Emperor, who to the end of his days called himself, “Pontifex Maximus”, or the chief priest of the Roman pantheon. Nor is there any disrespect in pointing out the limitations that the earthly Jesus necessarily was subject to. Indeed one can hardly honour him sufficiently unless one bears in mind what those limitations were, and what he achieved despite them.
Where one must not criticise Jesus is in his claim to have had a close communion with God, and a clear understanding of what God had in store for him. The legitimacy of our inspiration depends on the legitimacy of his. If the Transfiguration happened, as I believe it did, it happened six days after Jesus had asked his disciples whom they thought he was? So six days after Peter had confessed that he believed Jesus was “The Christ”, Jesus took three disciples up a mountain to demonstrate to them that he was indeed the Christ. That must have taken tremendous courage: the sort of courage that Columbus showed when his ship passed the point of no return, and he had to continue sailing West, because his food and water would not have lasted if he had turned back. And what greeted Jesus on his return to the valley, after this tremendous experience? An unseemly squabble due to his disciples’ failure to heal an epileptic. No wonder he felt weary.