While going through old papers, one of our friends in California came across a forty-seven-year-old newspaper from Andrews University. Thoughtfully she mailed it to me thinking I might be interested since my picture was on the front page. I doubt if anyone in my present circle of friends would recognize me if my name wasn’t also there. If it is true that we totally exchange all our cells every seven years or so that means I have had almost seven different bodies since that picture was taken. Since I have in the past year or so gotten a new knee and a new hip that brings the score up to eight for those parts. That person in the picture was me but isn’t me. So the question arises who are we or what are we. If that was me but isn’t me who is me?
For all of us, “Who am I” is one of life’s great questions. I am my mind. But what is that and how does it differ from my brain? Perhaps my brain is a house where my mind lives. Am I but a collection of memories, attitudes, ideas and a temperament? Are these what God saves when this mortal shell stops breathing? If I read 1 Corinthians 15 correctly Paul says we are but a seed to be buried that will yield an incredible being as unlike the seed as a big red juicy watermelon is different from the black watermelon seeds we spit into the grass on a hot summer afternoon. It does appear that resurrection is really recreation. Or should I say creation, since what appears is not like what died?
When I was 22 and a graduate of the seminary I had answers. No more. Now I wait for the God, who promises to do far more than I can imagine, to give me the real answers. See Ephesians 3:20.
Written by Roger Bothwell on February 19, 2010
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org