The recent and sudden death of my pastor, as well as a little scare with my mother (who now has a pace-maker), has forced me to think about a topic that always bewilders me: resurrection. Whenever I actually move beyond vague reassurances that believers are in a better place, I realize how little I understand about exactly what happens after Christians die. Are we just spirits for a while? Are we in another dimension or in another place? Do we someday get a resurrected body like Jesus had when he appeared to Thomas? After the resurrection why did Jesus eat with the disciples? Did he digest the food and poop? Is a marriage feast of the lamb only symbolic or real heavenly food? Will we be able to transcend time and space and suddenly just be somewhere? Anywhere in the universe? Will we be pure energy? How old, ugly, or beautiful will the resurrected me be? Will I be short eternally? Well, you get the idea—lots of stuff I don’t know.
Those with a scientific mind may be tempted to reject the idea of resurrection because there are so many unanswered questions—so much we can’t grasp. But for me this is exactly where science comes to the rescue. Imagine the life cycle of dragonflies that spend all their early stage (sometimes several years) as aquatic insects crawling along the bottom of streams or ponds. Even if these insects were as smart as humans, imagine how hard it would be for them to understand or believe that they could someday be dragonflies that zoom through something called air at speeds up to 35 mph. Dragonflies enter both a new place and something like a new dimension—and of course their new bodies are super-cool. As larva, could they have ever imagined having something called wings—four of them?
Best of all, it is all real—none of it is wish-fulfillment or religious fantasy. Therefore, is it really that hard to believe God could do something just as astounding and incomprehensible with us? If God does this for bugs, isn’t it likely that “eye has not seen nor ear heard” the glory he has prepared for us?
Dragonflies have a habit of sometimes shooting straight up into the sky until out of sight. I think this might be pure insect joy after years spent in the muddy bottoms of ponds. Perhaps it is like the joy we will have when freed from a body filled with medications, held together with implanted hips and knees, and kept going with pacemakers. When freed, I too might become a shooting star of joy, a comet of celebration.
Paul calls this a mystery, “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye . . .” We can’t understand it, but it is definitely change we can believe in.
