What Will Heaven Be Like?

Revelation 21.1-10, 22-22.5

 What do you picture Heaven being like?  Isn’t that the question we all want answered:  What is Heaven going to be like?

I mean, after all, Heaven is what we’re striving for, right?  That’s why we’re here, this morning:  because we want to go to heaven when we die.  Not that we’re in any hurry to get there, mind you.  There’s an old saying in Jamaica:  Everybody wanna go heaven; nobody want dead.

But, whether or not we like to think about it, sooner or later we’re all going to end up … dead.  And when we do, we want to go to Heaven, don’t we?  Well, don’t we?  Sometimes we don’t act that way.  One of my favorite songs by the Eagles is called “The Last Resort,” and one line goes like this:

“And you can see them there, on Sunday mornings.  They stand up and sing about what it’s like up there.  They call it paradise; I don’t know why you call someplace paradise, then kiss it goodbye.”

Now, that’s a very good question, too.  But there will be other sermons to deal with that question.  Today we’re asking another question:  What is Heaven going to be like?

Despite the fact that we occasionally stumble and fall along the road, we’re not really trying to kiss Heaven goodbye.  Heaven is the place we want to end up in.  But the truth is, we don’t honestly know just what Heaven will be like when we get there.

But before we get into Heaven, figuratively as well as literally, let’s think for a moment about what the opposite of Heaven is going to be like.  Our scripture this morning talks about a lake of fire and sulphur, of course, but I’ve got an alternative view I’d like to share with you.

Most of you probably remember the old television show, “The Twilight Zone,” hosted by Rod Serling.  What you may not remember is that Rod Serling had a second show, called “Night Gallery,” which was on in, I think, the early 70s.

“Night Gallery” was basically the same type of show as “The Twilight Zone” – same type of short stories – but it wasn’t nearly as successful.  However, there’s one episode of “Night Gallery” that I have never forgotten.

Now, you have to understand that this was something like 40 years ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy on the details, but here’s the basic story:

There was this Hell’s Angel type motorcycle guy – a really, really bad man.  Absolutely evil.  He terrorized everybody in town, and nobody would stand up to him.  One day he nearly ran over a little old lady who was crossing the street.  The little old lady scolded him, and told him that if he didn’t change his ways, he was going straight to hell.

The biker just roared with laughter.  He told the little old lady that he couldn’t wait to get to hell, couldn’t wait to meet the Devil face to face.  He just knew that he would have lots of fun in hell.

This being a TV show, that very night this biker took a curve too fast, wrecked in motorcycle, and was killed.  Sure enough, he went straight to hell.

The Devil is waiting when he arrives, and welcomes him enthusiastically.  The Devil assures the biker that he, the Devil, has been watching him very closely all these years, and that he’s glad to have him in hell.  Naturally, the biker is proud of this.  He tells the Devil that he’s ready to enjoy himself in hell.

The Devil tells the biker that there’s a special place all set up, just waiting for him.  The biker can’t wait to see it.

The Devil opens a door and ushers the biker into a room – a typical, 1950s looking American living room.  There’s a “Father Knows Best” type of family:  Mom, Dad, brother, and sister, all very clean-cut.  They’re sitting on the couch watching slides of their vacation.

The biker turns around to ask the Devil what’s going on – only to discover that both the Devil and the door have vanished.  He’s stuck in this room.  He quickly realizes that this family cannot see, hear, or feel him.

It suddenly dawns on him – and on the TV audience – that this is Hell, for the biker.  This monstrously evil biker is going to spend all of eternity trapped in this room, watching this family and the endless slides of their vacation, forever.

That episode of “Night Gallery” had a profound impact on me – obviously, since I still remember it all these years later.  This was the first time in my life – I would have been about 12 or 13 – that I really stopped to think about what Hell might be like.  And, conversely, what Heaven might be like, as well.

Maybe Hell is different for everybody.  If you go to hell, maybe whatever your worst nightmare is, that’s what hell will be like for you.  And if that’s the case, then maybe, just maybe, Heaven is different for everybody, too.  Maybe Heaven will be whatever your fondest dreams are like.

I don’t know, this is all just speculation, but it certainly gives us some food for thought, and thinking is always better than not thinking.  The fact is, no one knows for sure just exactly what Heaven will be like.  John the Revelator, however, gives us a glimpse of Heaven, the glimpse that he’s able to see here in the climax of his amazing vision.  And from this brief glimpse, there are a few things we might be able to figure out about Heaven.

First of all, we know Heaven is going to be magnificent because God will be there.  Heaven, first and foremost, is the dwelling place of God.  Now, let’s stop right here for a minute.  Can you think of any other place or places that have been called the dwelling place of God?  Keep that thought in your mind.

As we see in John’s vision, God’s presence fills Heaven.  “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.”  There’s no need for any type of light in Heaven, “For the glory of God is its light.”

Whatever else Heaven might be, it is the place where God lives, and that alone makes it paradise, a place worth striving for.

There will be no tears in Heaven, no death, no mourning, no crying, no pain.  “Nothing unclean will enter … nothing accursed will be found there.”  In other words, evil is gone.  Where God lives, evil cannot dwell.

Throughout this vision, John the Revelator writes about the triumph of God over suffering and pain and death.  People feared those things then; we still fear them, today.  But in Heaven, those things will be no more.  Evil cannot exist, in any form, in Heaven.  In Heaven, we will have nothing to fear.

We see that God will meet all our needs in Heaven.  “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.”

Water is the most precious commodity we have, far more valuable than gold or silver or diamonds or oil.  With water, you can live.  Without water, you will die.  In Heaven, water flows abundantly.

Alongside the river is the tree of life, with 12 different kinds of fruit, and leaves that heal.  In Heaven, God’s provisions are plentiful.  We won’t have any unmet needs in Heaven.  We are left to live an abundant life, free from worry, so that we can spend all our time praising God.

Let’s stop again.  Tree of life?  That sounds vaguely familiar.  Where have we heard that before?

“Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.’  Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden.”

Ah.  The tree of life was in the Garden of Eden, humankind’s original dwelling place.  After Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden so that they couldn’t eat from the tree of life.

The Garden of Eden – that’s another place that has been called the dwelling place of God.  You see?  We’ve come full circle.  We – human beings – were created to live in the Garden of Eden with God.  The Garden of Eden is home to the tree of lie.  The Garden of Eden is the dwelling place of God.

And now we see, in John’s vision, that Heaven is the home of the tree of life.  Heaven is the dwelling place of God.  What we have learned is that Heaven is the Garden of Eden – the place where we were originally meant to live.

We were created to live in – Heaven.  Originally, God intended for us to live in Heaven, with God.  That’s what God planned for us, and ultimately that’s what God still wants for us.

Unfortunately for us, we kissed it all goodbye through our own sinful ways.  Whether there were really two people named Adam and Eve and they ate some bad fruit is beside the point.  How it happened doesn’t really matter.  The fact is, it happened.  Humankind’s sinfulness got us kicked out of paradise, the Garden of Eden, Heaven.

But now, through Christ Jesus – the Lamb who was slain – we have the hope that once again we can dwell in Heaven with God.  We’ve come full circle, Genesis to Revelation.

“And in the spirit [the angel] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God.”

There is a third place that is often referred to as the dwelling place of God:  our hearts.  My feeling is that Heaven isn’t some far off place that we cannot reach until we die.  God brought Heaven to us, in the form of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb.

Heaven – paradise – begins for us as soon as we make Christ at home in our hearts.  Heaven is the dwelling place of God; when God’s Son dwells in us, we are in Heaven.  But how, exactly do we make Christ at home in our hearts?

“Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children … those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

Those who conquer.  What is it that we have to conquer?  We have to conquer our own desires, our own will, our own sinful nature.  We have to submit ourselves to the will of God.  We have to give our hearts, our lives, to Christ.  We have to obey the commandments of Christ – the commandments that we love God, and love one another.

When we put our whole trust, our whole faith, our whole being, in Christ Jesus, the Lamb, then he will write our names in the book of life.  Christ will be our ticket into Heaven, which begins right here on earth, right in our hearts.

So, what is Heaven going to be like?  Heaven is going to be like going home.  Home to where we’re supposed to be.  Home, where God is waiting for us with open arms.

The Born Legacy

Luke 2.1-7

Tonight we conclude our “Born” series with The Born Legacy.

The late baseball commissioner Bart Giamatti once said, “Baseball is about going home, and how hard it is to get there, and how driven is our need.”

Have you ever thought about the fact that Jesus wasn’t born at home?  Home, for Mary and Joseph, was Nazareth.  Jesus was born some 80 miles away, in Bethlehem.

And yet, the reason Jesus was born in Bethlehem is because for Joseph’s family, Bethlehem was home.  It wasn’t the place where Joseph lived, but it was the place his family was identified with.  You see, there’s a difference between the place where you live, and home.

Throughout the Christmas season we hear a lot of talk about home.  We hear songs – “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas.”  There are TV shows – and commercials – based on someone coming home for Christmas.  In almost every case, the place called “home” is not the place where the person lives.

Theologian Frederick Buechner says that “all of us live in two homes.”  There is “the home we knew and will always long for, always be homesick for.”  And there is also “the home we dream of finding and for which we also long.”  Home, you see, is the legacy of Christmas.

Deep within each of us is the home we remember.  At Christmas, more than any other time of year, we are conscious of that home.  I’m sure we could all tell the story of the home in which we celebrated Christmas as a child.

We remember the place where we hung up our stockings, or the table around which we ate Christmas dinner.  We remember the tree in the living room – perhaps we still have some of the old decorations that used to hang on that tree.  Every memory is unique.  Some memories of home bubble over with joy; some are soaked in sorrow and pain.  Some memories we cherish; some we would prefer to forget.

Our memories of home are a mixture of laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, comfort and pain.  But within each of us lies that home we remember – the place we come from, the home that helped to define who we are.

I can close my eyes and see quite clearly the home I grew up in, in Fort Smith.  I can remember exactly where we put the Christmas tree every year.  I remember how I used to sneak down the hall on Christmas morning and peek in at the presents under the tree, before waking up my mom and dad.

I remember my mom cooking Christmas dinner.  Have you noticed that, no matter how delicious someone else’s dressing might be, it’s never quite as good as the dressing Mom used to make?

That house in Fort Smith is the home that I knew, the home I remember.  It’s also the home to which I will never return.  Oh, I could physically travel to Fort Smith and see the house; the new owners might even let me look around.  But it wouldn’t be the same.  The home I knew as a child exists only in my memories.

And yet, I still long for that home.  Especially at Christmas, I find my thoughts turning more and more to the place of my childhood.  No matter how old I get, no matter how far away I roam, the home I remember will always be a part of me, and it’s good for me to go there from time to time, if only in my dreams.

That’s what Ebenezer Scrooge did.  Remember?  On Christmas Eve, Scrooge took an unexpected, and unwanted, journey back home – back to the places that defined who he had been, who he had become, and who he was becoming.  Then, Scrooge took another journey, this one into the future, where Scrooge discovered that he really didn’t have a home.

Once Scrooge returned from these journeys, he was a changed man.  Only after his journey home was Scrooge able to receive the gift of a new life on Christmas morning.  Because he finally found love in his heart, Scrooge was finally able to find a new home.

It is through Jesus – that child born in a stable, far from his hometown – it is through Jesus that God has provided the way for us to make it home.  Jesus – God in the flesh – came to earth to live as we live, and to die as we die.  Through Jesus, you and I can come face to face with God.  Through Jesus, God invites us home.  This is the home that Buechner calls “the home we dream of finding and for which we also long.”

The home of our childhood is the home we remember – the home we are homesick for.  But the home we dream of finding, the home for which we also long, is the place where we know that we are one with God.  We can call it heaven, or paradise, or Bethlehem – but what it is, is home.

It’s the family dinner table.  It’s the brightly decorated living room.  It’s the Christmas tree, where we find our gifts – including the greatest gift of all.  “Christ the Savior is born, Christ the Savior is born!”

Christ the Savior.  Salvation.  That’s God’s gift to us.  But what about our gift to God?  What gift are we expected to place under the tree, for God?

Legend tells us that when Christ was born, many beautiful gifts were brought to the manger – gifts of great beauty and splendor.  But one small boy was very poor, and he had no gift to offer.  This made the boy quite sad.  But then the boy had a thought.  “I know what I can give!  I can play my drum for him!”

And so he did.  Pa rum pum pum pum.  That small boy played with all the love in his heart.  And, according to the legend, the Christ child smiled at the little boy.

The gift of love is the best gift of all.  That little drummer boy was surely no Neil Peart, no Buddy Rich.  His gift wasn’t really his music.  That little boy’s real gift was his heart, his love.  That’s the gift God wants us to place under the Christmas tree, for him.  That, too, is the legacy of Christmas.

With love in our hearts, we will arrive at the home we dream of finding.  We will be home for Christmas.

Home with God.

The Born Ultimatum

Luke 1.26-38

 

 Today we come to the third sermon of our Born series:  The Born Ultimatum.

 “Greetings, favored one!  The Lord is with you!”

Mary had been chosen, “favored” by God.  But what a strange blessing Mary received.  Mary’s blessing brought none of the things that we consider essential to being “blessed.”  Today we assume that those whom God favors will enjoy the good things in life:  social standing, wealth, good health.  Mary, God’s “favored one,” was blessed with having a child out of wedlock – in a small town, no less, where everybody is a gossip – a child who would grow up to be executed as a criminal.

The fact is, acceptability, prosperity, and comfort have never been the essence of God’s blessings.  Mary’s child, Jesus, himself tells us, “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”  “Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man.”  That doesn’t really sound like what we think of when we say that someone is “blessed.”

Jesus never promises us a rose garden.  What Jesus promises us, really, is temptation, persecution, hardship, pain … in other words, what Jesus promises us is life.  But more than that, Jesus promises that, whatever we might go through in life, we will not go through it alone.  Jesus promises to be with us.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled … Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you … do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

You and I know that life isn’t easy; life isn’t fair.  Mary knew this, too.  Even being God’s “favored one” didn’t exempt Mary from hardship, pain, and sorrow.  Notice that God didn’t ask Mary if it was all right with her. God gave Mary an “ultimatum:”  “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son.”  The angel didn’t say, “Would you mind doing this?” or “How would you like to do this?”  Just “You will.”

I wonder what would have happened if Mary had argued, the way Moses argued at the Burning Bush.  I suspect that, as with Moses, God would have had an answer for every possible argument.  I also suspect that, again as with Moses, if the argument had gone on too long, God would have simply put his foot down.

But the glory of Mary, the joy of Mary, the good news of Mary, is that Mary accepted God’s blessing, and all that came with it.  I suspect that God knew Mary would be obedient; that’s why she found favor with God.  God knew there would be no argument.  When God gave Mary this ultimatum, Mary said, “‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’”

“Let it be with me according to your word.”  This is the good news of Mary.  Mary was indeed favored by God, and Mary would bear a king – Mary would bear the King of kings.  But only if Mary gave herself up in obedience to God’s will.  Mary’s blessing didn’t make Mary’s life any easier, but I believe that it made Mary’s life easier to bear.

You see, the greatest blessings in life are not the rewards that we associate with living the good life.  This is a myth, perpetuated by far too many TV preachers, who want you to send them your money so that they can live the good life – and in return, they promise that God will allow you to live the good life, as well.

This is a false gospel, this so-called “prosperity gospel,” which says that if we just say the right prayer, go to the right church, listen to the right preacher, then we can be healthy and wealthy and wise – blessed by God.  Don’t listen to those false prophets.  Prosperity is not the kind of blessing God sends to us.  That doesn’t mean that prosperous people are not blessed by God; it means that prosperity is not the sign of God’s blessing.

The greatest blessings in life are bound up in the fellowship God shares with us.  Once again, hear what Jesus himself had to say:  “Blessed … are those who hear the word of God and obey it!”  Mary exemplifies the obedient servant of God.  Think about it:  the glory of Christmas came about because of the willingness of an ordinary young woman to obey God’s call.

The greatest blessings in life come to us when we are willing to obey God’s call, when we follow Jesus’ commandments, when we love the Lord our God with all our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and when we love one another just as much as we love ourselves.

All of you who have come here today know the pain and sorrow that come with life.  Mary knew that same pain and sorrow.  So did Mary’s son – the son born out of wedlock, the son who grew up to be executed as a criminal.  And yet, Mary truly was blessed by God.  You can be blessed by God, as well.

God’s blessing won’t make your life any easier, but, like Mary, it can make your life easier to bear.  Because, just like Mary, you can have Jesus come into your life; just like Mary, you can have Jesus live with you.

Just like Mary, all you have to do is obey God’s call on your life.  When God gives you an ultimatum:  “Go, and do what I tell you,” just answer,  “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”