And

Conjunctions connect things, as we learned long ago from the conductor singing "Conjunction Junction (What's Your Function)" on Saturday mornings. There are many flavors of conjunctions, but the most common are the coordinating conjunctions--the ones that connect grammatically equivalent things (nouns with nouns, phrases with phrases, adjectives with adjectives). And is the most often used of these, linking one of something to next and to the next.

And means that there is something else. As Christians, we have to remember that there is always something next, that there is always an and. For us, actually, there are two ands we have to consider: the and of this life and the and of the next.

The and of this life reminds us that we are never finished being Christians. Being Christian is a process, not a product. We cannot say, "Okay, I'm done," and go merrily on our way. Being Christian is about becoming Christlike, and none of us is ever going to be completely and forever Christlike. Be Christian is a journey, and so long as we remain in this life, we have the next step to consider. No matter what we have done, good or bad, we have the next moment, the next hour, the next day to live, and living--as a Christian--means striving to be like Christ.

Some might say that becoming Christian is merely a matter of accepting Christ, and in one sense they are correct; however, we all have to realize that accepting Christ is just the beginning of the journey, and that if we are sincere in our commitment, we are undertaking the task of living our lives as Christ would live. We must also accept that we will fail, over and over again. We cannot be Christ. We can only strive to be Christ-like, and that will require us to try over and over and over again.

The performance artist Laurie Anderson observed that walking is falling and catching oneself--over and over. Walking the Christian walk is no different. We are constantly catching ourselves, and we continue on.

So we live with and as a constant. The ands of this life end only with this life; but, that brings us to the other kind of and: the and that connects this life and the next.

I often have a difficult time convincing students that there is a connection between the work they do and the grades they receive; I have an even more difficult time getting them to see the connection between what they are doing in high school and the things that are coming up after graduation. Students sometimes have trouble seeing connections. We, as Christians, need to be able to see the connections inherent in our lives--both the temporal and the eternal.

The crux of the connection between this life and the next is Christ. We must start by accepting Christ as our Saviour, but we cannot quit at that point. Accepting Christ is a first step, but, as already suggested, our life with Christ is a journey and we have to continue to recommit ourselves to Him daily. The root word of journey is journ, Latin for day. Our journey is a day-by-day experience. We must keep moving forward, toward our goal, else we will stagnate. Too many of us hold onto the idea that accepting Christ is enough--which is and is not true. Accepting Christ is all we have to do, but once we have accepted, we cannot stop because by our acceptance we have not only accepted Christ and His gift of salvation but also His charge to be His force in the world.

This is not to say that we can do anything to enhance our afterlife experience. We are told that heaven is the result of accepting Christ. However, as we have observed earlier, accepting Christ means accepting His lifestyle; therefore, once we accept Christ, we have accepted that we will do our best to live as He would. Ultimately, the two ands of being Christian are pretty much the same thing.