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What happens after we die?
Someone once gave examples to help formulate an answer. His help was in the form of questions:
Have you tried to describe a rainbow to a man born blind? Or a Tchaikovsky symphony like Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake, to a person born deaf? Explain the exquisite fragrance of a French perfume to someone who was born without the sense of smell? Or the difference between Italian and Thai cuisine for a person who never had the sense of taste?
What happens after we die is something totally new. To try to explain it then is rather impossible. As St. Paul wrote the Corinthians: “Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, what things God has prepared for them that love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
Are you afraid of what happens when you die? If so, why are you afraid? And is it a wise thing to be afraid? The Greek philosopher Socrates said, no, it was not a wise thing:
For to fear death, gentlemen, is only to think you are wise when you are not; for it is to think you know what you don’t know. No one knows whether death is really the greatest blessing a man can have, but they fear it is the greatest curse, as if they knew well. Surely this is the objectionable kind of ignorance, to think one knows what one does not know?
Socrates was wise. But we know something that Socrates did not know—that 400 years after his death, God would lift the veil and reveal Himself. Yes, the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, descended from heaven, taking on human flesh. After dying in the flesh, He rose and ascended to heaven, taking our human nature, our flesh with Him. And therein lies our hope.
Forty days after His resurrection, Christ stood on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives, a big hill, east of the temple. There, He gave His disciples a blessing with a hand that had a hole in it. Then He ascended. We must understand: Christ did not merely vanish or ride off on a donkey. He ascended, vertically, up into the clouds, like a rocket.
That Christ’s hands had holes in them is very important. It shows us that if we want to go where the Brave Shepherd has gone before, we have to suffer and die with Him first. The person who understands this is no longer afraid of anything but sin. He only fears offending God. Knowing he is made in the image of God, he shares with God what can be called a “divine sense of humor.” He can see through things and get the hidden meaning.
Bishop Sheen wrote:
To materialists, those who deny the spiritual, the world is opaque like a curtain; nothing can be seen through it. A mountain is just a mountain, a sunset is just a sunset; but to poets, artists, and saints, the world is transparent like a window pane—it tells of something beyond; for example, a mountain tells of the Power of God, the sunset of His Beauty, and the snowflake of His Purity.
“Opaque” is from the Latin meaning “shaded,” “in the dark,” “obscured.” And interesting enough, there was a huge, beautifully embroidered tapestry, a veil in the temple in Jerusalem that obscured the sanctuary, where the priests offered sacrifice. That veil was ripped in two, from top to bottom, the very moment Christ died on the cross.
Hundreds and hundreds of priests served in the temple at the time of Christ. After lambs were slaughtered and hung on hooks to be bled, priests working at long, marble tables washed and then butchered them, separating the various parts to be used as sin-offerings. The lambs were immolated (sacrificed) on a large, elevated altar, over a fire that burned 24/7. The smoke ascended up to heaven like a prayer.
A key component then to Jewish worship in the temple was verticality. This got everyone looking up. And why not? The Psalm states:
High above all nations is the Lord,
Above the heavens His glory.
Who is like the Lord, our God,
Who has risen on high to His throne
Yet stoops from the heights to look down,
to look down upon heaven and earth?
(Psalm 113)
Along with verticality, proper orientation was another feature of Jewish, and then early Christian, worship. When Christianity was legalized around 300 years after Christ’s death and resurrection, churches were designed so that priest and people faced east, toward the orient, ad orientem. Tertullian, as early as 197 AD, spoke of Christians “praying in the direction of the rising sun.” Why? The Acts of the Apostles states that Christ will return in the same manner He departed, which for many meant He will return on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives (Acts 1:11). The rising sun then became a symbol of Christ ascending into heaven.
Something interesting to note is that the pagan Gentiles also faced the east when worshipping, due to the fact they worshipped the sun. The Jews, however, prayed in the opposite direction. They faced west when worshipping in the temple. The Holy of Holies, the highest part in the sanctuary was on the far west end of the temple building. The Jews thought it best to turn their backs on the pagans who falsely worshiped the sun.
But here’s something even more interesting: If you were to draw a line across the west end of the temple, and then another line down the middle to form a cross, and follow that line, beyond the Holy of Holies, out the back of the building, and walk straight ahead 1000 feet, you would run into a hill, a mount—called Calvary.
Yes, the Jews at the temple prayed in the direction of Calvary! They were turned together toward the Lord, praying in front of the true altar. They prayed toward a mountain that was not just a mountain, but one that told of the power of God. They in fact prayed toward the true rising Son. That is all kind of funny if you think about it. It is what you might call a divine sense of humor coming from God.
And so, my friends, keep looking up and toward the Lord. Recall that Christ looked up toward heaven at the Last Supper, directly before He turned bread into His flesh, and wine into His blood. And He looks up toward heaven in the person of His priest directly before He consecrates bread and wine at Holy Mass. He does that to perpetuate the one perfect sacrifice for sin.
Understand: Christ is not standing at a table in Jerusalem, fragmenting various parts of lamb. No, He is the Lamb, who hangs up high in His Mystical Body; a body with holes in hands, side, and feet. The whole world, so states Scripture, is beneath those feet. Yet He stoops from the heights to look down and feed us, for He is not only the lamb; He is the priest, who fragments His Body so we can have communion with Him.
What happens after we die? Don’t fall into the objectionable kind of ignorance of those who think they know what they do not know. Instead, be wise, and ask yourself: What happened to Christ? He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, like a rocket. He did that to go and prepare a place for those who love Him. Do you love Him? Then fear nothing but sin. Fear nothing but offending the One who saves you. Be wise like Socrates, and even wiser, like St. Paul, who knew something Socrates did not when he told the Ephesians:
May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of Him.
Photo by Ivana Cajina on Unsplash
