"During the last months of his life, Brad was in considerable pain, especially when he stood up. We thought the pain might be from adhesions or different things...but we also knew it might be more cancer. The day he gave this last sermon, it was very interesting. He got up to speak, and he had no pain. 'I've had a miracle!' he said." (Carol Hall)
Mark Twain was attending a dinner party one evening when the subject of Heaven and Hell came up for lengthy discussion. For a long while Twain took no part in it and eventually a woman seated next to him asked, "Mr. Twain, why haven't you something to say? Surely you have an opinion about Heaven and Hell."
"Madam, you must excuse me," Twain replied with his usual wit and humor. "I am silent because of necessity. You see, I have friends in both places."
I think Mark Twain speaks for many of us, for we do not take seriously or much concern ourselves about life after life these days. And yet, like Twain, we do enjoy a good joke, story or parable about Heaven and Hell, as long as they are short and sweet. Here's one I heard recently:
A big, tough knight went to the monastery to visit a holy monk. He wanted to learn more about Heaven and Hell. "Monk," he shouted out boldly, "teach me something about Heaven and Hell."
The monk looked at this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, "Teach you about Heaven and Hell? I couldn't teach you anything. You're dirty, you smell, you're a disgrace and embarrassment of knighthood. Get out of my sight!"
The knight was furious. He shook all over and got red in the face. Speechless in his rage, he pulled out a sword, raised it over his head and prepared to slay the monk.
"That's Hell," said the monk softly. The knight was overwhelmed and realized that this little monk had risked his own life to teach him about Hell. In the face of this selfless love, and with utter repentance, he lay down his sword and was suddenly filled with gratitude and peace. The monk spoke once again: "And that's Heaven."
Two typical stories which in their own way through humor and surprise reveal something about the elusive subject of life after life. Last week we began this series trying to sort out two often-raised questions: (l) What is Heaven like? and (2) Who gets to go there? This week I want to explore two more questions: When do we enter eternal life in the Kingdom of God and what part of us gets to make this journey?
(1) When: While saying the Lord's Prayer, we say, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven." I think this means that eternal life in God's Kingdom begins right here on earth. I do not mean that we literally enter heaven now, for as we affirmed last week in my parable about the water nymph and the dragonfly, heavenly life and earthly life are two separate domains.
What I do believe is that the Kingdom of God exists on both sides of life. This is in part what the story of Nicodemus is all about. When we are "born anew" or "born from above," when we say "yes" to Jesus Christ and to God and turn our lives over to Him, we fully enter the Kingdom right there. And we begin what I understand as eternal life right then.
One way to visualize this is with the idea of dual citizenship. For example, England allows its citizens to hold citizenship in two countries, and that is what God does for us. When we accept and affirm our Christian faith in Jesus, we are given full citizenship in God's two kingdoms. While we are alive, we must live in this earthly domain, but we also have, so to speak, one foot in the next. And when, through death, our life on this earth ends, we get to move on to the next domain--Heaven. And the good news is that there are no gates, no keys, no "hoops to leap through."
Indeed, the Gospel of John tells us that Jesus Himself is the open doorway through which we will pass when we leave this world and enter the next. He will personally guide us through the gateway of death and usher us into the land of light and joy.
(2) The next issue that comes up for some folks is about what part of us gets to make the transition from earth to Heaven? A little filler from The Reader's Digest makes this point:
A four-year-old discovered a dead sea gull while walking along the shore. Excited, he ran back to his mother and brought her to see what he had discovered.
"What happened to him?" he asked his mother.
"He died and went to Heaven, son."
After thinking about this for a minute, the boy responded, "Then why did God throw him back down?"
I am not sure why, but this concept of our physical, fleshly bodies being resurrected and reappearing in Heaven has been popular from the beginning of Christendom. One of my favorite "Dear Abby" columns is a classic letter from a woman who wants to donate her organs after her death and has the donor form from The Living Bank. She took the donor form to church on five Sundays, trying to get witnesses, but no one would sign it. "They said I would need all my parts at the Resurrection," she wrote, "and they didn't want to be responsible for my being resurrected without a whole body. What can I do, Abby?"
Well, what she could do is read Chapter 15 of Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians and discover that the body of resurrected life is not the physical body of earthly life. Here's what Paul has to say:
"But someone will ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come 'into Heaven...?'"
Paul then goes into a detailed discussion of the various kinds of physical bodies--human, animal, celestial (Sun, moon, etc.) and then continues:
"(Heaven) is imperishable. (Earthly) life is sown in a physical body; (Heavenly) life is raised in a spiritual one. (and so) I tell you this, brothers and sisters, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God."
It's as straightforward as that. We get to leave our pain and aches, our wheelchairs and canes here on earth and receive a new spiritual body in life after life. Now what that spiritual body is like I cannot tell you. I don't know! All I do know is that it is like Christ's and that's good enough for me!
And lastly, let's wonder for a moment what actually happens "up there." Will a favorite pet be there; can I play golf; will I finally get my house and garden and rose-covered cottage? Well, who knows? What I do know is that life will be ongoing. We will be in the full presence of God and that I will be me there. What I also hope for is that I will reexperience ongoing relationships with my family and friends. As usual, Paul's words sum it up best, affirming that the:
"Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard...the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him." (I Cor. 2)
Or as a popular beer commercial put it: "It doesn't get much better than this!"
And with that I'll close this two-part series on Heaven (Life After Life) with this quote from Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town. Jane, a little girl in the tiny village of Groves Corner, NH, receives a letter written to her by her minister. It was addressed:
Jane Croffit,
Groves Corner,
Sutton County, New Hampshire, USA,
Continent of North America,
Western Hemisphere,
the Earth, the Solar System, the Universe,
Child of God.
"Well, what do you know?" says Jane to herself. "I have a larger address that I ever realized!"
And so do you, my friends, so do you! Amen.
* * * *
From the story of Noah and the Ark:
Noah had struck a spark from the rocks of Ararat and set fire to the Ark. Sadly, Noah and his wife waved good-by to their sons and their wives, and stood alone beside the burning ark. A drop of rain fell into Noah's eye. He wiped it away as if it were a tear.
"Don't worry, Noah," God said. "I give you my promise. There shall be no more Floods sent to destroy the Earth. And look up. I shall write that promise in the sky in language everyone will understand. See! I will set my seal on the sky, and you shall see it there whenever rain clouds start to break and the sun appears."
Noah looked up, and there above the ark was an arc of color, all the colors known to Man, bending like a bridge between Heaven and Earth.
The token of God's promise was a rainbow.
* * * *
From the sermon, Noah and The Ark
(Brad Hall, February 23, 1992)
...And so there we have it, Noah's Ark, a simply wonderful children's tale with some deep theological truths.
...Lastly and most important, no matter how dark the time or terrible the flood in our lives, we all have hope. God cares for and loves us and there will always be the rainbow, uniting heaven and earth, hard times and good times, God and you. Amen.
* * * *
Carol Hall: "A day or two after Brad died, I was sitting in the living room of our house, surrounded by family and friends, and I suddenly had to excuse myself. I had to be alone. I went in and sat down in our room, and I said, 'You know, Darling, I am just so overwhelmed. I need you to come and be with me.' And I closed my eyes and prayed. And when I opened my eyes, there were prismatic rainbows all over the room. They were everywhere. They were coming from a small diamond paperweight that I always kept on my dressing mirror in the bathroom. Someone had moved it to my desk, and it was creating all these rainbows. I broke into tears, and said, 'You promised me you would let me know you were near.' And nothing could have spoken louder to me than those beautiful rainbows."
Amen.
The Rev. G. Bradford Hall
1934 - 1997
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