The Life of the World to Come: a homily for Epiphany IV

‘Then we will see face to face’: the life of the world to come

At the early Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, 2022

I Corinthians 13

“We look … for the life of the world to come.” 

Week by week we declare this in the Creed we profess at the Eucharist. It is, however, probably one of those aspects of the Christian Faith that many of us shy away from.

There has been a tendency, stretching back over the last century, for Christians to focus on those aspects of the Faith that are primarily concerned with the life of this world, not the life of the world to come. 

We want others to know, in the words of the Christian Aid slogan, that Christians ‘believe in life before death’.

But, while it is obviously important to remind ourselves of our commitment as Christians to the life of this world, we fail to say something of foundational significance if we avoid the Creed’s declaration: “We look … for the life of the world to come”.

Words from Saint Paul in our epistle reading today explain why this is so: “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known”.

To confess faith in “the life of the world to come” is to say that now, in this world, our earthly lives cannot bear the fullness of meaning, truth, wisdom, love, goodness. 

So now we see only dimly, we know only in part: we do not, we cannot, in heart, mind, and soul know the fullness of meaning, truth, wisdom, love, goodness. 

But we will, for “we look … for the life of the world to come”. The fullness of meaning, truth, wisdom, love, goodness is not forever removed from us, not forever closed to us. 

For in “the life of the world to come”, we will gaze upon God; we will “see face to face”. In the life of the world to come, we will know God, even as God knows us.

Which is to say, “the life of the world to come” is the fullness of life in God. One of the greatest thinkers of the Christian tradition, Saint Augustine, put it with profound simplicity: “God … is the life everlasting”.  

The “life of the world to come” is not some abstract, natural notion of our immortality: it is dwelling in the fullness of God, seeing God face to face, knowing God as God knows us.

As we gather for this Eucharist in our side-chapel week by week, as we confess week by week in the Creed “We look … for the life of the world to come”, we see this icon of the Holy Trinity, the three Persons of the One God, open to us, with space for us to dwell, to abide, to behold. 

It is a foretaste, an anticipation of what shall be, of “the life of the world to come”. As we gaze upon the icon we see the Christian hope, that “God … is the life everlasting”, the One in whom we will dwell, in whom we will abide, whom we will behold eternally. 

“For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”