Courtesy of NASA images site. Mercury to Mars are roughly to scale to each other; and Jupiter to Neptune are roughly to scale to each other.

What is the future for humans? Conflict in the Middle East, disease and hunger and homelessness in Zimbabwe and terror in many parts of the world bring home to everyone the desperate plight of those caught up in conflict and violence. Beyond the need to bring peace in these situations is the often recurring 'worry' that may cross many peoples'minds. What is there beyond life in this world?

The amazing extent and complexity of the universe is a cause for wonder - when we are able to look outside the immediate contexts of daily life here and now. 'Star gazing' has been a preoccupation of countless civilisations! At one time the stars and planets came to be regarded as forces in control of the human race on the earth. At least the picture of the planets cuts us down to size, while being a truly wonderful vision of our real context! Science in the past three centuries has released us from irrational fears and dreams. But is there anything that we are able to put in place of superstition?

The Christian faith has not been immune from an intermixing of belief and superstition. In many ways we are still in an intermediate position with regard to thoughts of 'after life'. In the Middle Ages death was a spectre always before one's eyes in a world of brutality, natural disaster and the limitations of known medical care. Unfortunately for us today - if not for the people of those anxious times - the answers of the church in terms of punishment for sin here and now and in the world to come, turned the clarity of the gospel message upside down. We are no nearer to providing 'answers' to what is to follow after life here and now. But we can, at least, access what is shown in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as a matter of faith - if one has come to this faith.

To do this we need to leave to one side some of the statements of creeds and dogmas. We need to concentrate on the Man himself. According to the gospels he called himself 'Son of Man'. He shared all the hopes and fears of humankind at a time when life was counted cheap - as it still is in some parts of the world today. He devoted his life to releasing people from their fear and showing them that it was realistic to believe in the God whom he called 'Father' whose true 'nature' was love beyond our imagining. So the parable of the father running to embrace and kiss the son who was returning from a profligate life style, even before he got his apology out, tells us what God is like. And this God was about to do an even greater thing.

Jesus' resurrection, which no one saw, and despite the necessary 'this worldly' pictures of Jesus being with the disciples and others after the resurrection, was something entirely new. This is why it seems that it wasn't a 'physical' resurrection as some contend it had to be, to be true. Jesus, the same dead Jesus, appeared alive but transformed. he was able to pass through doors the stories tell us. Which in some strange way tells us that he was more than physically - in flesh and bones - raised. This brings us to the hope, in faith, that whatever happens to us, physically as persons, we shall be raised to a new life as Jesus was - and we shall be ourselves transformed, as Jesus was.

Can these things be? If there is any real hope to be found in human life, this faith In a resurrection like Jesus', contends for the highest peak of human hope. Only a few have conquered Everest but, if this faith is true, we shall all - and not only Christians - rise to the heights of our human nature as God intends. So this new creation will presumably happen at a time we cannot envisage here and now. In one sense, to have the faith that this is what God intends, helps us not to feel that at death we walk the plank into the completely unknown. To have confidence (another view of what faith means) in Jesus the risen Lord, is a privilege of those who are committed to him as disciples, but we will, at that 'time', share it with everyone. For while we know him. here and now, in faith, then 'we shall see him as he is'. It will be the fulfilment of all things and in which everyone will share. There remains, for us all, here and now, the problem of the persons who have given themselves over to evil. But that, like the time of the re-creation of us all, is what we know nothing about. As the author of the first letter of John says,

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. (1 John 3:1-3)