I grew up in a conservative Christian culture that was tinged with its fair share of fire and brimstone teaching about the Final Judgment. This culture instilled in me a particular vision of what would happen when I died: my disembodied soul would ascend into heaven to face a rather stern God. He would play on a giant celestial screen a sort of “final footage” of all my life’s sinful actions. In my anxious imagination, all the other souls would act like an ethereal jury, viewing this footage (and especially shaking their heads at the sins I had committed in secret.)
My theology has improved considerably since then (thank goodness!). I now believe that the Bible actually teaches that our final destiny is to live in resurrected physical bodies (not as disembodied souls) here on a fully redeemed earth (not an ethereal heaven “out there”). If this understanding of Scripture is new to you, I encourage you to listen to this Good Faith episode with N.T. Wright.
But that childhood vision of the “final footage” has lingered in the back of the mind as an adult. Once a scene has imprinted your early imagination — especially one so colored with shame — it is hard to dislodge it, especially if you aren’t given a compelling alternative scenario.
I think I may have finally caught a glimpse of just such a replacement scene. Improbably, I came across it while watching the USA Men’s Olympic hockey team (by the way, see below for Good Faith’s connection to these broadcasts!). Not the recent Gold Medal game (which was thrilling) but rather a film about the last USA team to accomplish this feat: the recently released Netflix documentary titled Miracle: The Boys of ‘80.
The film reunites over a dozen of the Team USA members, bringing them back to the very site of their triumph in Lake Placid. As the story of their improbable victory unfolds, the film features individual players watching old footage of themselves in their early 20’s (including many scenes they’ve never seen before). The players watch these flickering images on a screen displayed to them over the camera, so that we as the viewer focus entirely on their upward faces.
These men are all white, mostly from working class backgrounds in the Midwest or Northeast, and now in their late 60’s. They initially display the mix of joviality and self-deprecating humor so typical of that profile. Some bear noticeable paunches, and they all have graying hair. They seem, well, like a bunch of normal, late-middle-aged guys.
But as each one of them gazes upon the footage of themselves in their past lives, that veil drops. They become transformed, and the change is noticeably physical. Their eyes widen and glisten; they smile and shake their heads with a sense of awe and wonder; and some sit up a bit straighter as they reconnect with their former selves at the peak of their powers in a moment of glory. All of them seem to be positively glowing. And at the same time, they are also fighting back tears. You can tell they are the kind of men not given to crying but in many moments, they couldn’t help myselves. I couldn’t, either.
As the film ended, I thought about the Apostle Paul’s words: “And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18, ESV). Paul is describing here how the Spirit enables us to reflect Jesus in this life. However, in the ensuing passage, Paul connects this current transformation to what will happen in the life to come. He looks forward to when “the life of Jesus being manifested in our mortal flesh” (4:11) leads into the day when “the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus” (4:14).
Paul repeatedly conveys the sense that in the Final Resurrection, the Spirit of Jesus will achieve some sort of fusion of our two selves, where the best of our past life is somehow reconnected to and reflected in our resurrected life. He declares “for each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (1 Cor. 3:13, ESV).
I imagine — and this is purely my imagination — that “this revelatory fire” will include something analogous to the flickering images cast upon the faces of the Boys of ‘80. Perhaps we, too, will see footage of our past lives playing before us. And it seems that the Scriptures actually emphasize that the lasting images – the ones that “get revealed by fire” — will be of the moments in which we faithfully reflected Jesus in this life.
Like the Boys of ‘80, we, too, will experience awe and wonder. Awe because we will see Jesus shining through us in the footage. Wonder because the peak of our powers will be revealed not in the accomplishments that earned us literal or metaphorical medals awarded by our culture. Instead, I believe that we — and the company of saints — will witness scenes like this: the long hours patiently caring for our parents in the throes of dementia; our times of prayer even when afflicted by doubt; the kindness we showed to our lonely neighbor; chronic pain we bore while clinging to the hope of the Resurrection; and countless other moments of hidden glory in which Jesus was quietly transforming us by his Holy Spirit.
Those secret moments matter now and they will matter then. They possess “the weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:17) and our resurrected and fully redeemed selves will reconnect with the best of our current selves.
We will watch this unveiling with glistening eyes, giving in to tears of gratitude. And that day will be a day of true Miracle.