Jesus and eternal life.

A man had run to Jesus and knelt before him. While Jesus was going to the road, the man asked, “Good teacher, what can I do so I can inherit eternal life?”

—Mark 10.17 KWL

Yeah, there’s more to the story. And you’re probably aching for me to get to it. Well, tough. There’s a whole lot to say about this man’s question.

Evangelists consider this to be the most important question in the universe: What can we do so we can inherit eternal life? How can we get to heaven? How can we be sure we’re getting to heaven? ’Cause you don’t want to go to the hot place. It sucks. You wanna go to heaven.

Well okay, let’s deal with the question. And next week, Jesus will answer it.

Eternity.

Believe it or don’t, this is actually the first time eternal life comes up in Mark. The first instance of the word aiónios/“eternal” is when Jesus referred to the unpardonable sin, ’cause Jesus called it an eternal sin. Between that and this, eternity wasn’t discussed. So I’d better discuss it.

An aión/“era” is a significant time-period. The Greeks used it for all sorts of things, but most of the time they meant the lifespan of one important person. Like the king. ’Cause back then, people didn’t do the BC/AD (or CE) thing we do now, where years are counted from one, and only one, important event. They did this for every king. Seriously. Every time some new guy took the throne, it became year 1. So “year 20,” fr’instance, could be the 20th year since Saul became king, or since David became king, or Solomon, or Rehoboam, and so on. The British people still do this—there’s the Victorian Era, the Edwardian Era, and though they don’t currently call the present the Elizabethan Era, wait 50 years.

An aiónios/“age” is an even more significant time-period. Something bigger and grander than just an aión. Like a dynasty of kings. Like the Bronze Age (i.e. civilization till around 1000 BC, when people figured out how to smelt iron). Like our Christian Era.

People of Jesus’s day looked forward to the aiónios—by which they meant the time Messiah arrived to conquer and rule the world, and bring about his Kingdom. It’s what we Christians look forward to, too: We tend to call it “the Millennium” or “heaven.” In Jesus’s day it was called the aiónios—the next age, the future age, the age to come. When Jews talked about the aiónios, they meant the Kingdom of God.

No, aiónios doesn’t literally mean “eternal” or “eternity” or “everlasting” or “forever.” But the idea is welded to it: Once Messiah rules the world, his era isn’t coming to an end like all the other rulers. Messiah lives, and reigns, forever. So when Jews talked about the aiónios, they meant an eternal Kingdom—and eternal life.

That’s what this man meant. He wanted eternal life. He wanted to be sure he had it.

Eternity-minded Christians.

As do a lot of Christians. Many of us are fascinated by eternal life. It’s why great numbers of us came to Jesus in the first place: We wanted eternal life. We were promised it in John 3.16. We want to live forever.

Some of us didn’t understand it correctly, at the time. (Some of us still don’t.) We figured “eternal life” meant we go to heaven when we die. And not hell: We definitely don’t want to end up there. We want life after this life to be hopeful, not doom. So we signed up.

Those who become Christians for the “afterlife insurance”—we wanna go to heaven!—are easy to pick out of a lineup. You see, we’re way too heaven-focused. We don’t care about earth. Earth can suck it. So can everyone and everything on it. We want heaven.

Some of us mostly want the stuff of heaven. We heard a rumor there’s a mansion involved, and gold streets, and wings and halos like in the paintings of angels, and all our long-lost relatives, and maybe even long-lost pets. If we really love certain things, like coffee and Cheez-its and movies about sparkly vampires and bloody vengeance against our foes, maybe they’re there too. (Yeah, I threw in the last two things to show you just how iffy this thinking is. And yet some Christians have convinced themselves every wild wish will be realized in heaven—and in so doing are both twisting their vision of the Kingdom, and setting themselves up for massive disappointment.)

But the problem is described in that old saying, “Too heavenly-minded; no earthly good.” People with eternity on the brain tend to spend little time on the Kingdom of God. They figure “Kingdom of Heaven” means it’s literally in heaven—so why bother with anything here on earth? They don’t realize Jesus is going to resurrect us—bring us back to life on earth—so we can help him transform earth into heaven. The Father’s final goal is that New Earth and New Heaven will be one and the same. That goal, and the work, starts now. Not just after Jesus returns.

Maybe this guy understood this. Maybe not. Like a lot of eternity-fixated Christians nowadays, his only interest was in guaranteeing he got in. He wanted to know he was saved. And since Jesus had the skinny on it, he went to Jesus.

But did he want Jesus?

The stuff of heaven, but not the King.

As I said, some of us mostly want the stuff of heaven. We want eternal life. We want our reward—whatever we expect it’ll be—for being good Christians. As a child, I was taught we get crowns with a jewel for every person we bring to Jesus. I didn’t think much of jewels, so this wasn’t the motivator it was meant to be. But I did like the idea of having my own mansion. ’Cause in the King James Version, Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions,” and I had no idea “mansion” in King James’s day meant “apartment,” so I was expecting my own giant house. And in my house, I get to jump on the furniture.

But these things are perqs. They’re bonuses. They’re extras. They’re not the point of the Kingdom—namely the King. God created the Kingdom so he could have a relationship with his people. Not so he could grant us wishes—give us all the toys we could ever want, and then off we’d go to play with our toys, and leave God alone all over again. He wants to love us. To do that, he wants to interact with us.

Yet far too many Christians describe heaven, or the Kingdom, without any of this interaction. We talk about the rewards. We might talk about worshiping God—but most of the time, that talk consists of musicians who are jazzed about the idea of performing for God personally. And really, that’s just another perq. That’s not interaction: God is the audience, watching from there as his people do what they love.

(Unless God picks up a bass and joins them. And you know what: He may. There’s probably a good reason why a lot of Christians confuse the bass with the Holy Spirit. But this is all just speculation on my part. Don’t hold God to this.)

God wants to interact. God already wants to interact—to help us follow him better, to empower us to do his miracles, to reveal stuff to us, to reveal himself to us. He’s not like the benevolent parent who watches his kids frolic in the pool, but stands aside. He wants to join in. That’s why he became human. That’s what kind of King he is. Our visions of the Kingdom, of eternity, need to look like that—and not like the stuffy, stand-offish concepts of God borrowed from distant pagan deities, who were only “distant” because they’re not real.

If all we want is God’s stuff, but not God, we’re hugely short-changing ourselves. If all we want is eternal life, but we don’t want the one who gives it to us instant by instant, we’re not suitable for the Kingdom. We need to stop and think about what we really want to get out of eternity before we sign up for eternal life. Stuff isn’t worth it. God is.