Giving Up the Belief in Birth and Death by Rev. Christine Emmerling, D.D., 3/29/2026

Today concludes our series for Lent on Giving Up Your Beliefs. This week I’m speaking on Giving Up the Belief of Birth and Death. First, I’ll speak about what people refer to as death.

Many people in today’s world have the belief that death is a finality, meaning there is nothing else - you’re forever gone. Or, similar to a deep sleep as in a coma that is forever. Others who believe in the end times believe that this deep sleep is interrupted in the final days to go to heaven. Then there are people who believe that death is about going to either heaven or hell to live out eternity; being rewarded or punished dependent upon one’s deeds in this lifetime.

In Matthew 4:17, Jesus Christ said, “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” To me this is saying that heaven is not some far off place, or only to be experienced following death, but is actually a state of enlightened or awakened consciousness we call heaven.

Then in Luke 17:21, Jesus said “Neither shall they say, ‘Lo here!’ or, ‘Lo there!’ for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” In Matt. 6:9 “Our Father which art in heaven.” These statements to me confirms that God and heaven are within us as states of consciousness that are to be experienced in the hear and now - not in some far off distant future - it is now, the kingdom of heaven is at hand - when? NOW!

Therefore when Jesus was looking up to heaven when he blessed the food to feed the multitudes, metaphysically this would be understood to mean that he raised his consciousness, being God centered, which allowed that divine presence to flow through and as him, truly being a blessing. Heaven here and NOW!

This logic would also follow that hell must also be a state of consciousness that we experience in the here and now. When life experiences seem good we call this heavenly, and when not so good, or even appears really bad we call this hell. Heaven and hell are then states of consciousness. These states of consciousness come from where? They are within us. The Creator, God, is where? Within us. The Lord’s prayer says, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” That which we can dream of in consciousness, we can sit and think upon our deepest desire, and it will be done and manifested on earth. Earth meaning in the manifested world, or what we call the physical world. It is an inside out world. What is within our conscious and subconscious thoughts is experienced in our outer world.

In Romans 6:23, it states “the gift of God is eternal life.” Then what is death? What is referred to as death is nothing more than a transition from one state of consciousness to another. To think of life as merely in the physical body is a very limited idea of what life is. Think of the body as the clothing of the soul that we take on and off and can change.

The body constantly changes; I can look back at baby pictures of me, and if my name wasn’t attached to it, I wouldn’t recognize it as me. This body is in a constant state of change. Someday my soul will release this garment of a body. Even when that happens I will still have a body, which is of light. This body of light is eternal. This we call a transition from one state of life to another.

Today is the celebrated Palm Sunday which begins Holy Week, and culminates with the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, our Easter Sunday. It was the week just prior to Palm Sunday when Jesus was called forth to heal Lazarus. In John 11:38-44, We are told that he was too late in arriving to heal Lazarus as he was already dead four days and lay in a burial cave. His body was already prepared with oil and all wrapped up according to tradition.

Jesus then said, to Lazarus’ sister, Take away the stone. Did I not tell you that If you believe, you will see the glory of God? They took away the stone, and Jesus prayed, “Father, I thank thee that you have heard me. And I know that you hear me always: but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” Then he cried a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” He that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and Jesus said to them, “Loose him, and let him go.”

How can this be? He was dead. As the story of Lazarus’ return spread we have people putting Jesus on a pedestal as god. Yet, we may remember that Jesus said in John 14:12, “You to can do these works, and even greater works than these shall you do.” These demonstrations were lessons for his disciples so that they too can do these works to heal and restore the seeming dead.

Jesus great message was that God is within us, God loves us, and that life is eternal. And why is life eternal, because the eternal God is our life, living in, through, and as our very self.

Then what is death, but a state of consciousness that has turned away from the material world of matter to spirit - a transition in consciousness. When people are ill and nearing their time of transition, they spend increasingly more time in an alternate state of consciousness. Some call it sleep. People will also see things, and speak to beings that only they can see. They begin living between two worlds. Until there is a complete release from this realm.

A number of years ago my mother and I went to visit a church member who was nearing her transition. She woke from a sleep, and said I must have my purse, they tell me I’m going on a trip. She left this plane of existence within two days.

Joel Goldsmith calls life here a Parenthesis in Eternity. That life goes on and on. Based on this conclusion then birth as many people know it is also not true. Some believe that life begins at the time of the first breath, and others in the womb. Yet, the soul is eternal, and therefore is not new as a complete blank to be written upon with its life experiences. Its more like a veil that separates memories of the past. Some people have access and do recall their other life experiences. And there are hypnotists that can guide a person to recall past lives and even the periods between lives.

The subject of reincarnation has long been ignored in the traditional Christian doctrine. Therefore, many do not have a belief in a prior life or life after death. Then there is an example of life after death in Matt. 17;1-3, “After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”

We find in the eastern tradition reincarnation is widely accepted. The following is from the Bhagavad Gita or Song Celestial Translation by Sir Arnold Edwin:

“Never the spirit was born; The spirit shall cease be never;

Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!

Birth-less and deathless and changeless remains the spirit for ever;

Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!

Nay, but as when one lays His worn-out robes away,

And, taking new ones, says, “These will I wear today!”

So putteth by the spirit lightly its garb of flesh,

And passeth to inherit a residence afresh.”

Divine Science teaches there is a single incarnation of the spirit that lives eternally. Like putting on and taking off clothing. Regardless of the form we are expressing, we are life, and it is continuous consciousness without a break. Our experience of life is what changes.

When we see an infant, look into their eyes, and silently say, “I know who you are, you are the Christ - A Holy Child of God.” I have done it many times. They respond looking back with wide eyes and a smile.

In the past fifty years or so, we have been learning much more about life after death, or what we refer to as the other side. People who have had what we call a near death experience or NDE, have experienced being dead for a short time, and came back to tell of their experience.

In the mid 1990's I led a near death support group which was part of The International Association for Near-Death Studies. Attendees would share their experience. What was interesting is that they did not all have the same kind of experience. The individual experience seemed to have more to do with their belief about heaven and hell.

Today my understanding is that we take our consciousness with us. Meaning, that which we have been thinking and feeling will continue as our experience in some form, just like it does in this realm, but on the other side of the veil. If you are depressed now, in dying you’re not going to suddenly wake up joyous. It is how we live each day that prepares us for our next experience in life; whether in the here after or next life.

Some souls actually experience being in a hospital following their transition. A period to rest and restore. During a dream state, a few months following my mother’s transition, I saw her from a far off what appeared to be a hospital, and she was being taken by wheelchair from one building to another. She seemed vibrant and happily talking to her attendant. Then a few months later, I had another dream state encounter. She told me that she didn’t die, but just moved away north. She looked young and beautiful.

In Genesis, God said, “Let there be life.” God didn’t say anything about death. God does not even know of death, for God is life. Then what is this thing we call death? Nona Brooks wrote in Mysteries, in the chapter The Mystery of Death, “The so called dead are those who conceive themselves apart from life - God in Action.”

Next Nona says, and I really like this, “Natural science tells us that death is an acquired habit of the race, and that since men have taken it on, men must throw it off. We believe that the race is able to rise out of the misconception that men must die....It will take consecrated effort to root it out....Thinking true to principle of God and God in action.”

Birth is also not as we know it. Science tells us that we are from our parents. I remember that Jesus said to call no man on earth your Father for there is but on Father - God. From this I understand that God is truly our only so called parent, our creator and source, and is our very life. Our soul then forms this body out of consciousness to experience in this plane of life.

The events we have been calling birth and death, then have no true reality. They are simply transitions from one expression of life to another. According to Jesus in John 14:2, we are told there are many mansions in our Father’s house. To me this says that there are countless places for our soul to experience, and earth and this third dimension is just one of them.

Let us affirm: “God is Eternal Life, therefore I am eternally alive.