"Go not from house to house" - If One Was Promised Eternal Life

A Park around Tokyo

If One Was Promised Eternal Life

A few decades ago, a publisher of a monthly magazine in Japan asked readers to post real stories (non-fiction) about death of their families, friends, and people around.  Most of their stories told peaceful sates of death of closest family members.     

Although Japan is not a Christian country, dying persons were not afraid of the hell but believed that they could enter the paradise, despite their fear of being dead.

An old dying woman told her grand son that death was not anything special but a natural event.  An old dying man told his daughter that it was the time to go; when she asked where to go, he replied that he was going to another world.  When a dying man said that he was afraid, his daughter said that there was no need to be afraid, although she was not so sure, and then her dying father got into a peaceful death.  In another case, an old father told in his dying bed to his crying family what should be prepared for his funeral in details and gave an alert to watch out and get cracking. 

There is influence of Buddhism among ordinary people in Japan.  Although most of them are not Christians and do not believe in the one God, the creator of the world, they do believe existence of anther world, the paradise or the Pure Land taught in Buddhism.

A certain reader even wrote that her dying father was entering into another world and coming back to this world for some time at his will while lying in his dying bed.  Her father told her that another world was so splendid that she should also come together now, but his daughter said that it was impossible since she was busy in this world.  Then, her father said that it was understood, and added: "Oh, I lost the key.  I cannot come back any more."  Accordingly, the old father was soon gone forever.  

Nowadays, about a million people die in Japan every year.   But only few people seem to worry about the Last Judgment or whether they can be admitted into Heaven.  Most of factions or schools of Japanese Buddhism teach that anybody who believes in the Buddha or Amitabha Buddha would be welcomed in the paradise or the Pure Land.  Some schools even tell that bad guys can be surely accepted in the paradise due to mercy of Amitabha Buddha, so all the more faithful people are welcomed in the paradise.  There is no strong sense of the Last Judgment by the God, but the Japanese common sense that "let the water carry it away" seems to prevail in the last stage of one's life.   

 

When one dies and goes into Heaven or the hell or another world, money, social status, and past worldly success become useless.  Only the relationship between oneself and the God, the Buddha, Amitabha Buddha, or Satan counts.  And such relationship cannot be bought by money even from Satan who would request one's soul for any wealth or success in this world.

Christ Jesus should not praise any dead man who has earned big money in this world.  But rich men should not be able to think of anything but money they can rely on even after death.  So, they must think that that they should earn money as much as possible, in case, for a need in another world if they think that it ever exists. 

In my personal view, it is most encouraging that the Bible or Christ Jesus tells that anybody believing Him and the God would be given eternal life.

But one of the most impressive stories about someone's death was reported by a nurse who wrote a book on her professional experiences.  A girl in an early elementary grade hospitalized for a specific illness, who friendly communicated with other elder patients of the same illness in the hospital, cried out to her doctor one day: "Please never let me die since others will become so sad, since I am the youngest among those patients."  The nurse wrote that the girl finally lost her life due to the fatal illness, but she lived well until death, which moved the nurse.

If one was promised eternal life, one might wish others their happiness and mind them more than one's own death like this Japanese little girl. 

      

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Luke 10    King James Version
6 And if the son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it: if not, it shall turn to you again.
7 And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.
8 And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you:
9 And heal the sick that are therein, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.
10 But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say,

11 Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.