Imagining Heaven

On 22 August 2024, Rev. Ross McDonald preached the following sermon. Sadly, our live stream wasn't recording it but he kindly provided his written version here, one which is worth reflecting on:

--

In almost every service here at Christ Church, we say together the prayer taught by Jesus, beginning, Our Father and including the words, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

What, when we say these words, do we mean by them? What does ‘in heaven’ mean?

I suppose, the fact that I have passed my 90th year makes me all the more interested in heaven. Speaking of getting on in life or becoming a senior, I recall a cartoon in the New Yorker which showed a couple standing before an archway on which was inscribed: You are now entering the evening of life. The man is saying: What’s it say, Margaret, I’ve forgotten my bi-focals.

A great number of people believe in or hope that there is life beyond the grave and picture the heaven they hope for in very personal terms:

Ernest Hemingway described his idea of heaven in a letter, written in 1925, to F. Scott Fitzgerald: “To me, heaven would be a big bullring with me holding the two barrera seats (they’re front row seats) and a trout stream outside, that no one else was allowed to fish in, and two lovely houses in town; one where I have my wife and children and am monogamous and love them truly and well, and the other, where I would have my nine beautiful mistresses on nine different floors . . . Then there would be a fine church like in Pamplona where I could go and be confessed on the way from one house to the other and I would get on my horse and ride with my son to my bull ranch . . .”

Here is an excerpt from a book entitled, What’s Heaven? It was written by Maria Shriver, wife of Arnold Swarznegger and niece of John F. Kennedy, and apparently a best-seller: “Heaven is somewhere you can believe in . . . it’s a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk to other people who are there. At night you can sit next to the stars, who are the brightest of anywhere in the universe . . . if you’re good throughout this life, then you get to go to heaven . . . when your life is finished here on earth, God sends his angels down to take you up in heaven to be with him.”

But what is heaven really like? Professor Alister McGrath, Professor of Historical Theology, Oxford University describes it in the following way: “Heaven – the presence of God, where believers will find the final fulfillment of the love, joy and peace they have begun to experience here one earth. As well as representing the presence of God and his goodness, heaven also stands for the absence of sin and all disharmony that has resulted from the fall. That is what the scriptures teach us, but always in the language of poetry, in metaphor and simile. Why? Because the vocabulary, which we have for living in this world is insufficient to describe what life in the presence of God is truly like.”

Is it a place? In ancient times, heaven was always thought of as ‘up there’, beyond the firmament of the sky. Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, is reported as saying: “I flew into space, but didn’t see God”? Apparently, it was not Gagarin who said this, but Khrushchev. At a plenary session of the Central Committee addressing the question of anti-religious propaganda.

Khrushchev set the task for all Party and Komsomol [Young Communists] organizations to boost such propaganda. He said: “Why are you clinging to God? Gagarin flew into space and didn’t see God.”

Nonetheless, heaven is not up there. It is better thought of as a dimension outside or different to the one we live in. Heaven in the Bible, however, most often refers to present reality, the heavenly dimension in our present life – God’s dimension, which we are part of now.

N.T. Wright has written: “It comes as something of a shock when people are told that there is very little in the Bible about ‘going to heaven when you die’, and not a lot about post-mortem hell either . . .  The kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven, in the preaching of Jesus, refers not to post-mortem destiny, nor to our escape from this world into another one, but about God’s sovereign rule coming on earth as it is in heaven.”

John the Baptist prepared for Jesus’ coming with these words: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

Jesus’ ministry was full of teaching about the kingdom of heaven, that is about God’s heavenly rule here on earth. Life here on earth is far from heavenly. This is a sad and broken world in which there is warfare, killing of innocents, huge numbers of people driven from their homes and living as refugees. This is world of people capable of great good and yet sinking to appalling sin. The world Jesus came to was the same.

When Jesus entered our fallen world, it was like shafts of light breaking through dark and heavy clouds. Wherever he was, there were examples of the heavenly life lived in this earthly life. Whenever people, like you and me, turn to Jesus’ in faith, Jesus brings the presence of God into their lives. Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them. Jn. 14:29. What a beautiful promise!

After Jesus’ baptism, we are told he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said,’ This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased’.

Jesus teaching was all about living the heavenly life here on earth. He taught that, keeping the commandments was essential for living under God’s rule. (Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Mt. 5:19)

About material things, which we live and work for – things we treasure. (Do not store up treasures on earth, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, Mt 6:19-20.) That is, live for and work for things which are of eternal value and which please God. Reflecting on the sincerity of our words – Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Mt. 7:21

Jesus’ life was an expression of the prayer: your will be done on earth as it is in heave. He taught, “I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me for I always do what pleases him” (Jn. 8:28-29) and “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me” (Jn 8:4).

As he faced death, he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father if you are willing, take this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done. Lk. 22: 42. Jesus’ whole life was fulfilling the words of his prayer, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, he taught and lived the heavenly life on this earth. He lived in the constant presence of God who is in heaven. His values, his standards for life, his lifestyle were all inspired by what he knew of heaven. In this life we can experience the presence of God, ‘though fitfully. Jesus promised that we will experience God in his fulness in heaven.

Perhaps the best-known description of heaven appears in the last book of the Bible – Revelation. In the last chapters of this apocalypse, John, it’s author, has a vision of the heavenly Jerusalem: in it there is a list of no mores:

No more—Death

Pain and tears

Thirst and hunger

Temple

Sun and moon

Night and darkness

Impurity

Evil

And these no mores are balanced by positives: Heaven is a noble, ethereal realm, endowed with wisdom, and radiance and the fragrance of a plenteous land, wherein is the enjoyment of every excellence.

An ancient Irish description of heaven, entitled the Vision of Adamnan has these no mores: "Heaven will be a kingdom without pride, or vanity, or falsehood, or outrage, or deceit, or pretence, or blushing, or shame, or reproach, or insult, or envy, or arrogance, or pestilence, or disease, or poverty, or nakedness, or death, or extinction, or hail, or snow, or rain, or din, or thunder, or darkness, or cold . . ."

Heaven is defined by the presence of God and all that God is.

So we think of the Biblical description of God’s nature: Spiritual, eternal, everywhere present, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, and in the Bible’s description of his character, God is: Just, merciful, faithful, compassionate, patient, and above all Love.

We all want to experience life within such a presence, with so many no-mores, and so many blessings, blessings, we enjoy so spasmodically in this life? As we have seen, there are many who would like a heaven on their own terms, but not one where God is present.

When Jesus was hung on the cross, he was conscious of the faith of one of them, when the thief in anguish beside him made clear that his punishment was due to his crimes, whereas Jesus was innocent, when he said to Jesus in his pain, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Jesus said, I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.

One hymn we sing from time to time describes heaven as the peaceful calm of paradise the blest – paradise, the word used for a garden, reminding us of the garden in which God placed the first human beings of his creation. In parenthesis, we might observe what elevated spiritual perception that thief had: To the onlookers of this ghastly scene, Jesus wasn’t going anywhere, least of all taking charge of a kingdom. We know differently, of course, because we understand the purpose of Jesus’ death (he died in our place, bearing the judgment of God on our sins) and he rose again and we are part of that kingdom, praying and working towards that kingdom coming upon earth.

Earlier, we heard read the story of the raising of Lazarus. There are so many things, we would like to know: Did Lazarus experience heaven in that time in the tomb? Would his hearers have understood if he had spoken of it?

Joseph Braddock wrote about this in a poem entitled, Lazarus:

“While Mary wept within her darkened room,

While Martha served her guests and broke her heart,

Where were you, Lazarus those four days?

Not in the garden tomb, cool from the sun,

But in a world of light, glory beyond

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveler returns –

But you bewildered Lazarus came back,

Answering his mighty word of power:

’Lazarus, come forth!’

You stood bound in your grave clothes. In the sun,

While awe fell on the shaking crowd.

Your amazed soul caged dumbly in your eye.

How could you, Lazarus, speak to them of that?

Words would fall baffled back

Beating against the doors of sense,

The myth of time.

How make the deaf hear?

The blind to see?

So, your soul kept a secret: unguessed heaven.

Dazed, you walked softly all your length of days,

A silent man, a quiet man, remote,

A man who guards a dream.”

So, there is little we can say about heaven, beyond perhaps the words of Paul: “No eye has seen, no the ear heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him – but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit,” (1 Cor. 2:9).

In the last lines of last book of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis has Aslan, the Lion, who stands for God, reveal to the Pevensie children that there has been a railway accident and the family has been killed: “And as Aslan spoke, he no longer looked like a lion, but the things that began to happen after that were so great and so beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say they lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their lives in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and title page: now, at last, they were beginning chapter one of that great story, which no one on earth has ever read: which goes on for ever and in which, every chapter is better than one before.”

Sufficient for us, for the moment, should be the promises of Jesus: “In my father’s house are many rooms.; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you may be where I am,” (John 14: 2-3).

Sufficient for us, too, should be the confidence with which the Apostle Paul viewed the promise of eternal life, such as we see among the last words written by Paul from his place of arrest in Rome: “. . .the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me on that day – and not only to me but to all who love his appearing.”

Please join me as a closing prayer in saying that line from the Lord’s prayer: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Amen.

‍