By Wolfgang Mitzvot
As I entered the sauna at my local gym, I sat down next to a guy I’ve encountered a number of times there. Our conversations have always been pretty surfacy—things like “How are you doing?… “Crazy weather we’re having… How was your workout?”, etc. So, as I sat down next to him in the sauna, I expected more of the same.
He mentioned he was going to be celebrating his birthday in a couple of weeks, so I said, “Oh, happy pre-birthday. How old are you going to be?” “80 years old,” he replied. Stunned, I said, “Wow that’s amazing. You look great and I know you’re always working out and being active. Good for you!” Then I asked if he was gonna do anything fun to celebrate and he said, “No—just going to hang out with my kids and grandkids.”
He continued, “As I get older, you know, I just wanna try to keep working out and being healthy so I can try to keep death away.” I laughed and said, “Yeah,” and after a pause I added, “I don’t know if you heard about this story, but just recently there was an Indian billionaire who, while he was playing polo, swallowed a bee and the bee stung him in his mouth, and he went into anaphylactic shock and ended up having a heart attack and dying.” The gentleman said he hadn’t heard about that.“Yeah,” I said, “we just don’t know when our time is, right?” He replied, “Nope, we really don’t.”
I sensed that kind of opened a little door so I asked him, “Have you thought about what might happen at death, you know when you close your eyes for the last time here and open your eyes again, kind of like in the movie Avatar?” He replied, “You know, when I was in college, I took philosophy and religion courses and came away with this idea that we really don’t know anything about life or the afterlife, and we can’t really be certain of anything after we die.” I said, “You know, as a Christian, I do believe that we can know about the afterlife and be certain about it.” He replied, “It’s pretty illogical to believe in a god or to believe in heaven or things like that.”
“Illogical, huh?” I questioned. ”Yeah,” he responded. I continued, “That’s interesting. My point of view is that there are really only two possibilities of us being here on earth and existing. One is that you can believe in a Big Bang-type theory and that we come from matter—that two atoms were in existence and those two atoms collided, and from that all the planets, stars, galaxies, and universes all came into existence; or you can believe in a Creator who created all the planets, stars, galaxies, and universes.” I went on, “You know, it takes faith on both sides, because you have to ask yourself, even on the Big Bang side, where did those two atoms come from? Scientists can’t give us that answer, right? They just have to say they always existed, so it takes faith to believe that those atoms are matter that always existed and from that came all of nature, or you have faith that there was a Creator God who existed, and He created all these things.” He seemed to accept that pretty well, so I asked, “What do you think about what I said about two possibilities?” He replied, ”Yeah, you know I do pray twice a day…” I just looked at him, stunned.
I remarked, “That kind of begs the question, you know: Who do you pray to?” He said, “Well, they’re just kind of rote prayers and I just pray for my mom and her health.” I did the math in my head and answered , “She’s gotta be like 100 years old!” and he smiled, “Yep, she is.” I said, “That’s amazing!” and he said, “Yeah, so I pray for her, and I pray for myself, but I don’t really know who I’m praying to.” I said, “So, you’re praying to an unknown entity,” and he agreed.
“That kind of reminds me of a scripture,” I said. “Do you know who the apostle Paul was?” He said he did. I went on, “Well, in the Book of Acts, the apostle Paul noticed this altar that was inscribed to the unknown God and Paul said to some philosophers that he knew who this unknown God was, and he started talking about Jesus.” So I said to my companion, “Maybe when you’re praying, you’re praying to Jesus.” He replied, “I don’t know.” Then I said, “Well, can I encourage you to do something?” “Sure, what?” He asked. I responded, “The next time you’re doing your twice-a-day-prayer, if you can tack on at the end of the prayer, ‘If whoever it is that I’m praying to, if you could show yourself to me, that would be great.’ And you know, maybe God or Jesus will show himself to you.”
He posed a question, “Isn’t that like Pascal’s wager? Do you know Pascal’s wager?”[1] I said that I did and that I thought there was a correlation to what I had shared. “But I also think there is a difference: with Pascal’s wager you’re just hoping for, kind of like, fire insurance (not going to hell); while with my suggestion to you, you would ask whoever you’re praying to already that he would show himself to you. I believe it is God and I believe if you were to encounter Him, you would be able to have a personal relationship with Him because that’s really what God wants—a personal relationship with you. God wants to be a father to us and for us to be adopted as children to Him in this world. And yes, when we die, we would be able to also be in heaven with Him. So, there is a correlation to Pascal’s wager, but I think it’s much more than that and would encourage you to pray that if you’re so inclined.”
He didn’t really commit to that, but he said he didn’t deny it either. By this time I had been in the sauna for over 20 minutes, and I was very, very hot, so I excused myself and wished him a great day and added that if he ever wanted to have any further conversations, I’d be glad to engage with him in those conversations. I went and took a very cold shower to cool off, and I went on with my day.
[1] Pascal’s Wager is a philosophical argument proposed by Blaise Pascal suggesting that it is in one’s best interest to believe in God, even if one cannot prove or disprove God’s existence. The argument is based on the idea that the potential rewards and losses of believing versus not believing in God are asymmetrical. If God exists and one believes, the reward is infinite (heaven); if one believes and God doesn’t exist, the loss is finite (minor inconveniences of religious life); if one doesn’t believe and God exists, the loss is infinite (hell); and if one doesn’t believe and God doesn’t exist, the gain is finite (minimal). Therefore, the best bet is to believe.
You may contact Wolfgang Mitzvot at wolfgangmitzvot@gmail.com.