There’s the claim in the Book of Revelation, written perhaps seventy years after Jesus’ brief earthly life and early death, that puts his life in the context of the eternal and ongoing creation. The creation is historical, yet infinite:
I am making the whole of creation new. . . . It will come true. . . . It is already done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. —Revelation 21:5-6
The Jesus of history and the Christ of faith are one and the same.
Sometimes a reference to Jesus Christ annoys me, as if Christ was Jesus’ last name replacing the designation “of Nazareth”. Naming the town where they beckon was the custom, emphasizing a point of origin that is geographic, political, earthly and earthbound. Replacing “of Nazareth” with “Christ” might undermine our sense of Jesus’ as truly human, coming from a specific small town in a specific historical era.
And yet, that might be the point I miss. The very same Jesus in history is for all time, and beyond time in the historical sense. It doesn’t negate Jesus’ historical being, but places it in the very same context that I’m trying to comprehend as infinite. Jesus’ revelation: Our physical being is one and the same as our infinite being.
Like Kenny, but more like Jesus, we don’t die because we cannot die.
