I AM the life
I AM the life
We have life because we are connected to the Life.
We are surrounded by it, but it seems that no one understands it. Life, that is.
Jesus gives us physical life
We can’t even seem to agree when it starts. We Christians are right in saying it begins at conception, but plenty of people disagree. Even we seem a little conflicted about it. Pregnant mothers say, “I’m going to have a baby.” Don’t they already have one? We all remember our birthday. Why? If the day we are born means the day we came to life, that’s not it.
We also have trouble figuring out when life ends. Is it when the breathing stops, the brain waves go flat, the last plug is pulled, or something else?
Now Jesus comes along and says, “I am the life.” Certainly Jesus is the author and creator of this thing we call life. He created that spark. So everything that is alive is in some way connected with Jesus, the Life.
Jesus gives us spiritual life
But this physical life is not the end game for Jesus. He said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Obviously Jesus wants to make us more than physically alive. He wants more for us than breathing, sleeping, walking, and even laughing.
St. Paul explains how Jesus gave us life to the full: “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:13,14). This greater life is called spiritual life. We even call it being “born again by the Spirit.” The connection with the author of life, Jesus, is no longer vague or incidental. It is real, through the conduit of faith and love. And now we are “alive” the way the Life wants us to be. As a matter of fact, without this life—earned by Jesus and created by the Spirit—we would be dead. We would be no better than terminal patients waiting for the end. Without the Life—Jesus—our end would be eternally terminal.
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