Over the past ten years or so, considerable attention has been given to a phenomenon called the near-death experience. Books have been written, psychological studies conducted, personal histories compiled. Take, for example, the story reported in The New York Times See The New York Times, November 17, 1988, p. 20. of a woman who was revived after her heart had stopped functioning. She spoke of realizing she was "still alive" during the time she had apparently died and was supposed to be unconscious. She told of becoming aware of a comforting light and, in her words, of "an indescribable feeling of being cherished, protected, unconditionally loved."
Of course, as with any highly subjective phenomenon, the medical and scientific community finds it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach solid conclusions about the nature of such an experience. There is simply no way to measure or verify what has actually taken place in someone else's thinking. And there's always room for disagreement about what such an incident might actually mean in any one individual case. It's even more complex when you add to the debate something like eight million similar cases involving adults in the United States alone, which a Gallup poll highlighted seven years ago.
When Jesus restored people to health and wholeness, when he lifted them up from sin, when he showed them what it really means to know God, he was bringing them closer to the great facts of their own spiritual Identity, closer to comprehending life in and of God.
