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 Promise of Hope

Revelation 1.4-8

 

It has been said that on other book of the Bible has suffered as much from its interpreters as the book of Revelation.  Author G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Though St. John the Evangelist saw many stranger monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.”

Without doubt the mysterious visions and strange symbolism found in the book of Revelation lend themselves to outrageous interpretation.  Added to that is the fact that, all too often, people try to apply concepts and images found elsewhere in the scriptures to the bold and unusual characters and symbols found in Revelation.

Take the Rapture, for example.  If you’re looking for the Rapture, don’t look in the book of Revelation.  The concept of the Rapture is found in 1^st Thessalonians 4.14-18.  Paul described this coming “Rapture” as a time when all believers will be together with the Lord.

The early Christians had been under the impression that Christ would return while they were still living.  As members of the church began to die off, doubts and despair began to creep in.  Paul comforted those remaining with the knowledge that one day all Christians would be together with God; those who had already died as well as those still living.

For 1,800 years that was fine, but somewhere around 1830 a British evangelist named John Nelson Darby began tinkering with the notion that Paul’s words of comfort and hope were somehow tied to events described in the book of Revelation.  Darby’s ideas led to the modern concept of a two-stage “Rapture” that has been popularized with those “Left Behind” books, and lots of TV preachers.  This modern version of the “Rapture” has nothing in common with what Paul was writing about, and nothing to do with the book of Revaltion.

Dr. Barbara Rossing, of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, calls this modern Rapture a “racket,” and says that “this theology distorts God’s vision for the world … [it] is not biblical.”  Indeed, Christianity managed to get along quite well without Darby’s “racket” for all those years.  The “Rapture” that Paul is describing in 1^st Thessalonians has nothing to do with the book of Revelation.

Another image that has fairly recently been closely tied to the book of Revelation is the idea of the “anti-Christ.”  Again, if you’re looking for the anti-Christ, you won’t find him (or her) in the book of Revelation.  The anti-Christ is mentioned exactly four times in the Bible; all four within the first two letters of John.  And, amazingly enough, John tells us exactly who the anti-Christ is – and it’s not some beast of a man who becomes ruler of the world.

1^st John 2.18:  “As you have heard that anti-Christ is coming, so now many anti-Christs have come.”  1^st John was written around the turn of the first century – a little over 1900 years ago.  At that time not only had the anti-Christ already come, but many anti-Christs had come.  How?

1^st John 2.22:  “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?  This is the anti-Christ, the one who denies the Father and the Son.”  The anti-Christ is anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ – the Son of God.  By that description there are literally hundreds of millions of anti-Christs living in the world today – everyone in the world who doesn’t believe that Jesus was and is the Son of God.

1^st John 4.2-3:  “By this you know the Spirit of God:  Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  And this is the spirit of the anti-Christ, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.”

Again, the anti-Christ is not some creature who is going to appear at the end of time; the anti-Christ is already in the world by the year 100 A.D.  The anti-Christ is anyone who does not confess Jesus Christ as God in the flesh.  Your next door neighbor could be an anti-Christ!

And finally, 2^nd John 7:  “Many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh; any such person is the deceiver and the anti-Christ.”  Same thing – the anti-Christ is already in the world; the anti-Christ is anyone who does not confess Jesus as God in the flesh.

Over the past hundred years or so people have tried to depict everyone from Adolf Hitler to Osama bin Laden, from Richard Nixon to Barack Obama, from Elvis Presley to Barney the Dinosaur as “The” anti-Christ.  There is no such thing.  The Bible tells us who the anti-Christ is, or rather, who all the anti-Christs are.  Yet somehow this notion of the anti-Christ has been bound up with the imagery from the book of Revelation, and a whole cottage industry has sprung up around it.

I’ve wandered way off track her, but my point is that things have gotten so bad that some people avoid the book of Revelation altogether.  Lots of people are afraid of the book of Revelation, because of what they’ve read in books and online, and heard on television, and even heard from pulpits.

And that’s a real shame, because while it’s true that the book of Revelation can be difficult to understand – John Wesley once wrote that “The Revelation was not written without tears; neither without tears will it be understood” – it is also true that no other writing in scripture can bring us so near to the throne of God; no other writing can, in the words of William Barclay, “move us so unashamedly to fall on our knees and worship Christ” as the book of Revelation.

The thing is, we have to understand the book of Revelation for what it really is.  Revelation is, first and foremost, a pastoral letter, written to bring comfort, understanding, and above all, hope, to the people of the early church – and to us, today.  There is perhaps nothing more needed, and yet seemingly more absent these days, than hope.  It is practically impossible to go through a day without coming into contact with someone in desperate need of a little hope.

The person struggling with cancer; the woman whose husband just died; the abused child – they all need hope.  The victim of a senseless crime; the homeless man who doesn’t know where his next meal will come from; the parents who have to choose between food and medicine for a sick child – they all need hope.  The junkie who just can’t seem to shake the drug habit; the woman who just lost her job; the man whose wife has left him – they all need hope.

The list could go on and on.  Part of being human is being vulnerable to the tragedies of life – vulnerable to a feeling of hopelessness.

Hope can be one of the greatest gifts we can possibly give to someone who is hurting, someone who is lost.  And when we find our way through all the complex symbols and mysteries, we find that the overriding theme of the book of Revelation is the hope that Jesus Christ offers in the midst of all our hopelessness.

John, the writer of the book of Revelation, and his audience, the early church, most certainly needed some hope.  They were the victims of persecution because of their faith.  So John is given a grand vision – a vision full of hope.  In sharing this vision with the early church, John encourages them regarding their suffering and the need for perseverance.  And John’s words apply just as strongly for us, today.

In this passage of scripture, right at the very beginning of his letter, John gets right to the point.  This letter is about Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the earth.  It is Jesus who loves us, Jesus who frees us, Jesus who makes us a part of his kingdom.

It is through Jesus that God sends us grace – all the undeserved gifts of the wondrous love of God.  It is through Jesus that God sends us peace – the harmony between God and humankind which was restored by Jesus.  John then reminds us that Christ will come again.  He reminds us that it is Jesus who will come, and everyone will see him, even those who have crucified him, those who have pierced his heart by their betrayal.

For the people of the early church, and for us today, this is an incredible message of hope.  Although things might seem hopeless, God has made a promise, and God always keeps his promises.  When God fulfills his promise, and Christ comes again, all people will be affected, all people will be changed.  Despite the difficulties we face in life, we can always look to the constant promise of the hope of God.

What an amazing promise this is!  The wonder and power of God didn’t stop with the resurrection of Jesus.  Pastor, professor and author J. Ellsworth Kalas says that Easter is the beginning of the story, not the end.  There is still a part of God’s promise that God will fulfill.  And while it’s true that we don’t live in the same kind of persecution that John and the early church faced, as modern disciples of Jesus Christ, we have our own set of problems; and the same hope that offered comfort to the early church offers comfort to us, as well.

Whatever situation or hardship we face, God promises to be with us.  God doesn’t promise that there will be no hardships, no tragedies; God promises to go through our hardships and tragedies with us.  The hope in that promise is the wonderful gift that we have as disciples of Jesus Christ.  The gift of knowing that, no matter what, Christ will be triumphant in the end.

“Grace to you and peace” from Jesus Christ, who gives us plenty to be hopeful about.  The Lord God not only “is” and “was,” the Lord God “is to come.”  The story didn’t end at Easter.  There’s more to come, and it’s going to be good.

That’s the meaning, and the promise, of the book of Revelation:  the promise of hope.

The Truth is Out There

John 16.12-15

[First sermon at Timothy UMC, July 4, 2010] 

A few years ago there was a family who attended the local United Methodist Church together:  Mother, Father, and a little boy named Ricky.  This family always sat up close to the front, about the 3^rd or 4^th pew, and no one sat in front of them, so the pastor had a good view of them as he stood in the pulpit.  Every Sunday morning little Ricky was given a dollar bill, and every Sunday morning little Ricky dropped that dollar bill into the offering plate.

This went on, week after week, month after month, until one Sunday morning the unthinkable happened.  When the offering plate was passed, little Ricky didn’t put his dollar bill in it.  The usher was a little surprised, and hesitated a moment before moving on.  Little Ricky’s parents looked at one another over Ricky’s head, that “parent” look that means “we’ll deal with this later.”

After worship, the pastor stood by the door, as we pastors do, shaking hands and speaking to everyone on their way out.  Little Ricky and his family made their way down the aisle, until it was their turn to shake hands with the preacher.  Little Ricky reached into his pocket, pulled out his dollar bill, and handed it to the pastor, saying, “Here, I wanted to make sure you got this, because I know you need it so badly.”

The preacher was surprised, and a little touched by Ricky’s thoughtfulness, but also very, very confused.  Bending down, he said to little Ricky, “Thank you so much, Ricky, but what makes you think that I need this dollar bill so badly?”

Little Ricky looked into the preacher’s eyes and said, “I heard Mommy and Daddy talking last night, and they were saying that you were the poorest preacher they had ever known!”

I hope you don’t leave here today thinking that I’m the poorest preacher you’ve ever known … but if you do, I accept both cash and checks!

One of my all-time favorite TV shows was the X-Files.  I absolutely loved that show, which is a little odd because I’m not one of the conspiracy theory types – I believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, for example.  But I loved the X-Files.  I was what was called an X-Phile – p-h-i-l-e – an avid fan of the show, like a Star Trek Trekkie.

You may or not have been a fan of the show, but even casual viewers – in fact, even people who never watched the show – were familiar with the X-Files motto:  The truth is out there!

The truth is out there.  “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.”  The Holy Spirit, Jesus says, is the Spirit of truth.

The Holy Spirit is probably the least understood member of the Trinity.  We know that the Holy Spirit was the driving force behind the growth of the early Church, we know that the Holy Spirit came down upon Peter and the other disciples on the day of Pentecost – but what else?

We understand God the Father:  Creator of all things, almighty, all-powerful, full of glory.  We understand God the Son:  Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, the “Word” of God through whom God revealed himself to us.

But we seem to have trouble coming to grips with the Holy Spirit.  God created us; Jesus saves us; but what, exactly, does the Holy Spirit do for us?  Well, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of truth.”  So it seems that the job of the Holy Spirit, then, is to bring God’s truth to us – to you and to me, to all humankind.  “He will guide you into all the truth.”

Now, that’s all well and good, but why couldn’t Jesus just tell us the truth to begin with?  Seriously, why not just tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and be done with it?  Why didn’t Jesus say, “Here’s the truth, I’m done.”

In the movie “A Few Good Men,” Tom Cruise’s character, a military lawyer, tells Jack Nicholson’s character, a colonel on the witness stand, that he, Tom, wants Jack to tell the truth, and Nicholson barks back, as only he can:  “You want the truth?  You can’t handle the truth!”

And you know, that’s pretty much what Jesus says to us, right here – although Jesus is a little more tactful than Jack Nicholson.  Jesus says, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”  You can’t handle the truth!

Revelation, or truth-telling, is a progressive thing.  Jesus knew things that he just couldn’t tell the disciples, because they weren’t ready, weren’t able, to understand them.  It’s ridiculous, not to mention irresponsible, to tell someone more than they can understand.

We don’t start first-graders off with the quadratic equation.  We don’t even start them off with beginning algebra.  We start them off with:  1+1=2.  Until they understand the most basic concepts of arithmetic, there’s no sense even trying to teach them geometry or calculus.  In history class, we don’t begin with the subtle political undercurrents that led up to World War I.  We don’t ask 6-year-olds to write a thesis explaining the economic factors that led to apartheid in South Africa.  No, our first history lesson is usually this:  In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

We begin with the easy stuff, the simple stuff.  See Spot run.  Well, God works in much the same way.  God teaches us what we are able to learn; no more, and no less.  When you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense for God to do this, and yet this simple fact is often ignored.

For example, we sometimes spend a lot of time and energy worrying over parts of the Old Testament that seem completely out of character for the God we know and love.  But if we look at it from the point of view that humanity itself was much younger, was less mature, back then, we can perhaps understand that, at that stage of human development, God unveiled as much of the truth as those folks could understand.

The last Scottish theologian William Barclay illustrated this point by noting that, in the Old Testament, there are numerous passages which call for the total annihilation of an enemy, wiping out not only the men, but also the women and even the children, when an enemy city is taken.

You think the Psalms are really beautiful poems?  Psalm 30, this morning:  “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up … Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning … O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

Listen to Psalm 137.8-9:  “O daughter Babylon, you devastator!  Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us!  Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”

“Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock?”  That doesn’t quite jibe with “Love your enemies,” or “Turn the other cheek,” does it?  But the underlying thought of Psalm 137, and other passages like it, is the idea that Israel must not risk the taint of any heathen religion.  To avoid that risk, to keep their religion pure, those who do not worship the one true God must be destroyed.

At that stage in human development, when humankind was still “young,” Israel had grasped the truth that the purity of their religion must be protected.  Unfortunately, the only way they could think of to protect it, at that point in human development – or human maturity – the only way they could think of to protect the purity of their religion was to completely wipe out their enemies.

By the time Jesus came, humankind had matured a bit, and people had learned the truth that the way to preserve to preserve that purity of religion was to convert their enemies, rather than to destroy them.  We – humanity – had advanced from “See Spot run” to “Alas, poor Yorick; I knew him, Horatio.”

The people of the Old Testament had grasped a great truth, but they had grasped only a small part of that truth.  The people of Jesus’ day had grasped more of that great truth.  Today we understand even more of the same truth.  Abraham Lincoln was once criticized for being too courteous to his enemies.  He was reminded that, as president, it was his duty to destroy the enemies of his country.  “Do I not destroy my enemy,” Lincoln asked, “When I make him my friend?”

2,000 years from now, people will understand even more of this same truth.  How do we know?  Because there is no end to God’s revelations, to God’s truth-telling.  God’s Spirit is always active, God is always revealing himself – and we humans, as a species, are always becoming more mature, better able to handle more and more of God’s truth.

Now, you might say that God’s greatest revelation came some 2,000 years ago, in the form of Jesus.  And I totally agree.  But remember that Jesus isn’t just some historical figure found in a book.  Jesus is alive and well, today, and in Jesus God’s revelation goes on and on.  God is still leading us, still guiding us, into greater knowledge of the truth, into greater realization of who Jesus is and what Jesus means for us.

God did not stop revealing himself when Jesus was born.  God did not stop revealing himself when Jesus was crucified.  God did not stop revealing himself when Jesus ascended.  God did not stop revealing himself in about the year 120 A.D., when the last book of the Bible was written.

God is still revealing his truth to us, today, and God will continue to reveal more and more of his truth to humankind long after you and I are gone.  And note this:  God’s revelation is a revelation of all truth, not just what we might call theological truth.  God’s Spirit guides us in all facets of life.

When a Fanny Crosby or a Charles Wesley writes beautiful, poetic words of praise and thanksgiving, God’s truth is being revealed.  But God’s truth is also being revealed in the poetry of Robert Frost, the writings of Dickens, the paintings of Van Gogh, the music of Beethoven.  All these things reveal part of God’s truth.

Anything that inspires us, anything that makes us sit up and take notice of God’s creation, whether it be listening to “Amazing Grace” or “25 or 6 to 4,” whether it be watching “Blue Planet” on the Discovery Channel, or “Burn Notice” on USA Network, whether it be watching the sun rise, or listening to Dean Martin – or my favorite:  watching the sun rise while listening to Dean Martin.  God’s truth is revealed to us in any number of ways.

When a scientist discovers something that makes life better for us; when a surgeon finds a new technique that will save lives and ease pain; when someone discovers a new treatment that will bring life and hope to those suffering from what are now terminal illnesses – when any of these things happen, God’s truth is being revealed to us.

When a child takes her first steps; when a student makes the honor roll; when a Monet puts color to canvas; when Eric Clapton plays the guitar – God’s truth is being revealed.

All truth is God’s truth.  Any time we discover any new piece of truth, we are receiving a revelation from God.  God’s Spirit is guiding us, whether we realize it or not.  That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

All truth comes from God.  Ben Franklin didn’t invent electricity, he just discovered it.  Truth is the same way.  We humans don’t make up the truth; the truth is already out there, and the truth never changes.  We just discover the truth, a little at a time, as God reveals it to us.

You see, truth is a gift from God.  And the truth – all the truth – is out there, just waiting for us to discover it.  And you know what?  No one has ever discovered all the truth.  In my opinion, that’s just one of the many great things about Jesus.

No one has ever grasped all that Jesus came to tell us.  No one has fully worked out all the significance of Jesus’ teachings for life and for faith, for each of us individually and for the world, for society and for the church.  Yes, the truth is still out there, and we are continually finding out more and more about who Jesus is, and what Jesus means for us.

And that, in a nutshell, tells us who the Holy Spirit is, and what the Holy Spirit means for us.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, guiding us into all the truth.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  The Holy Spirit reveals to us more and more of Jesus.  And the more we learn, the better we are able to grasp even more of the truth – the better we are able to handle the truth.

Jesus is the Truth.  The Holy Spirit guides us to the Truth.  The Truth is out there.  I invite you to reach out, and let the Holy Spirit lead you to your own discovery of the Truth.