Life After Death
Humans need motivation in order to get up and do something. Throughout our history, we have experimented with different types of motivation to see what is most effective. Is fear an appropriate or effective method of motivation? Do humans instead need to be incentivized in order to act according to how others might want them to? In order to understand motivation, we need to look at a biological reality that can be found in every single living organism - we come into existence then spend the rest of that existence trying to survive. In this regard, humans are no different from other animals. We work to feed ourselves and to seek shelter. We reproduce to carry on our own DNA. Survival is the most essential form of motivation. However, there is something unique about human survival: from the very beginnings of human community, there has been a concept of an afterlife. If every human community understands that existence does not end with death, why do we fear death?
From a Christian perspective, death is a punishment and a natural consequence for our sins. It is the single greatest fear of human beings because we do not know what is waiting for us after death, if there is anything at all. Our loving Creator, though, knew that death is merely a consequence, not a necessity of our nature. Therefore, He took on the punishment for our sins, dying for us on the cross, then rose from the dead on the third day to give death one final blow. Now, our participation in death is only bodily; we have the opportunity to accept the sacrifice of Christ, to follow him, and to allow him to grant us eternal life. We must never underplay the act of Christ going to his death for us; to die for someone else is the greatest and purest expression of love, which is precisely what Christ taught his friends the night before he died. The one thing that motivates you in everything you do on a daily basis is to avoid this death, yet suddenly your life becomes secondary when it means protecting someone you love. Love elevates our sense of motivation; no longer are we looking out for our own self-interests or our own survival, but now look to preserve the well-being of another. The act of sacrificing yourself for another person shows that the fear of death, found in all levels of animals, is not the greatest motivator nor the one thing that causes us to move. Love is far greater.
Christ’s motivation for everything he did was not survival or comfort or longevity. It was love. Love for us, God’s Creation, His children. His love led him to die for us, just as the good shepherd will sacrifice himself for the sake of his flock. He died willingly because he knew it was the ultimate expression of love. If given the opportunity to reciprocate, would you die for him? Would you give up your life, which biology seems to indicate is the one thing you are trying to preserve in this world? Jesus teaches in today’s Gospel that a thief has no care for a flock, only to “survive” off of what he can steal, slaughter, and destroy. The good shepherd foregoes his own survival just so that his flock may live. The fact that there is a good shepherd, that there is a desire for him to die for his flock, that there is a desire for us to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the ones we love, indicates that life is more than just survival or avoiding death. There is a greater motivator, and it is the one thing that exists and is waiting for us after death: it is love. This is the understanding of an afterlife that seems to be imprinted in our own nature as humans. That is all the motivation we need to live according to the way of Christ.
Today's Readings:
