This morning’s lecture on the Coptic Gospel of Thomas
included the idea that, by understanding the secret sayings of Jesus in that
gospel, people could avoid tasting death.
In many religions today, as in the history of religion, there
is much about the existence, description, and attainment of life after death. Yet the same Gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as
saying, “The kingdom of God is spread over the world and men do not see it.”
I
don’t claim to know, let alone understand, the secret sayings of Jesus. But I believe heaven is not a place, but an
experience available in this life – the experience, however fleeting, that
everything is all right just the way it is.
If that is our experience in the last moments of life, on the threshold
of leaving this life, what more could we want?
