What's Next?

Last week’s post ended with this question: So if Jesus’ teachings and ministry were not necessarily about what happens to us when we die but about “eschatology,” and the New Testament isn’t really all that concerned about us when we die but when God makes all things new, then what are we supposed to believe happens to us when we die?

My five-year-old son, Wyatt, asked me once, “Where’s heaven?” My response was, “With God.” He wasn’t satisfied. “What’s it like?” he asked. I thought for a minute. “Come here,” I said. Then I wrapped my arms around him and held help tightly to my chest and kissed him on the forehead. “You know how sometimes when you’re scared or cold or sick or just want one of us with you, you say to mommy or daddy, ‘Hold me.’ Then we hold you close like I am now and you feel safe and warm and loved. That feels good, doesn’t it?” He nodded. “That’s what I think heaven is like. I think heaven is like being held like that, but by God, and forever.” That’s really about the best I could come up with, and I’m very hesitant to paint too detailed a picture.

In one sense a parallel can be drawn between a nativity scene and the popular images we have of heaven. The common nativity scene is a combination of the story as it is told in Matthew, as it is told in Luke, the prophetic imagery of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, traditions of the church, supposed additions by St. Francis of Assisi, and a few more anachronistic additions. The nativity scene has its core in the scriptures, but if we stuck strictly to Matthew and Luke the stable wouldn’t be made of wood (it was probably carved out of rock), there wouldn’t necessarily be three magi (the Bible never says how many), there wouldn’t be any animals (the Bible just says they were in a stable, not that the animals were allowed to stay once Mary and Joseph showed up), and so on and so forth. But we have added those things over the years because (1) we don’t like not knowing exactly what something is like and (2) it fills out the picture of the nativity beautifully in ways that make sense to us. In my opinion, this is what we have done with heaven. We’ve combined a bunch of different verses from the Bible, sprinkled in a lot of tradition, legend, hopes, and conjecture, and then we hold onto that image because (1) we don’t like not knowing exactly what something is like and (2) it fills out the picture of heaven beautifully in ways that make sense to us. Let’s explore the topic a little bit.

In the Apostles’ Creed we say, “I believe in… the resurrection of the dead.” Also, all the talk of a heavenly body that is in 1 Corinthians 15 really seems to be about after the final, collective, resurrection. So, if the “eschatology” of the New Testament is that people die then will someday be resurrected from the dead and judged by God in Jesus Christ then what happens between when we die and when we are resurrected? Because, you see, in the Apostles' Creed we also say, "I believe in... the life everlasting." That “in between” time and place is, I believe, what we typically refer to as heaven. But why is it that we believe that there is anything in between death and the final resurrection of the dead?

In Luke’s gospel, while Jesus is dying on the cross, one of the criminals who is dying on the cross beside him begs him, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus doesn’t say, “Sure thing, you’ll die this morning and then someday you’ll be resurrected and then I will remember you.” Nope. Jesus says to the dying man, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” The Greek word translated as “paradise” carries with it the image of the Garden of Eden. Also, in Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi, as he was sitting in a Roman jail cell he wrote, “I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.” Paul’s life has grown so difficult that part of him wishes that he would die, depart to be with Christ. He doesn’t say that he wishes he could die, then someday be resurrected. That is a part of his hope, to be sure, but in this particular moment he is talking about being with Christ upon death.

Another passage that seems to be built upon the assumption that heaven or “the bosom of Abraham” (whatever that means) is immediate upon death and contemporary with current life of earth is Jesus’ parable of Lazarus. I would, however, be very cautious about mining this particular parable for information about life after death as it would lead us to believe that (1) heaven is “the bosom of Abraham,” (2) people in heaven and people in hell can communicate with one another (that doesn’t sound like heaven to me,) and (3) that salvation is based completely off of how one has treated the poor (which also seems to be the case in Matthew 25). I don’t think we want to mine all of that out of this one parable. It might, however, be a clue that Jesus had a sense of heaven (and hell) being a place not just for the eschatological future but for individuals upon death.

One idea that I’ve heard that attempts to make sense of the future hope of the collective resurrection of the dead and our present hope that when we die we’re not just “asleep” or even nonexistent until that future event but in heaven, deals with the difference between our concept of time (kronos) and God’s concept of time (kairos). I will try to explain without muddling it up. This theory says that the eschatological future (Second Coming, etc.) is only future to me because I am in this world that runs on chronological time (past-present-future). When I die, however, I will no longer be in this world. Instead, I will be in God’s realm in which what was future in the world is actually present. In a sense, this idea says that when I die I will step into a realm in which the future is the present. It will be like God hit the fast forward button for me. I think I’m confusing myself here. Anyway, that’s just an idea.

Presbyterians, as Reformed Christians whose theological family tree leads back to John Calvin, have a little different take on the subject of heaven than some of our brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, we tend to talk and think about it less than many. That isn’t because we don’t believe in it, though. The overall number one emphasis in Reformed theology is the “sovereignty” of God, meaning God is in charge. That statement is where Reformed theology begins. So when we ask theological questions we always start with God. So if someone was to ask me, “Do you put your hope in heaven?” I would say, “No, I put my hope in God.” So really the question of what happens to us when we die is, like all theological questions for Presbyterians, a question about who we believe God to be. So typically we don’t talk a whole lot about heaven, but we do talk a whole lot about God. Think back to my opening “explanation” of heaven to Wyatt. Is it based on anything specific that the Bible says about heaven? No, not really. But it is based upon what the Bible says about the God of heaven.

There are some bestselling books out there like 90 Minutes in Heaven and Heaven is for Real. Did the respective authors really visit heaven? I don’t know; it’s possible, I guess. I don’t know that they didn’t any more than I don’t know that they did. But regardless of what actually happened in those situations, ultimately I don’t base my life on New York Times bestsellers. I base my life upon the Word of God. With that in mind, Romans 14:8-9 really capture the Presbyterian thinking about heaven. Paul writes, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” What this means is that if I trust God in Jesus Christ in my life, then I also trust God in Jesus Christ with my death as well. Here’s how Allen Verhy in an article he wrote for Presbyterians Today puts it: “Christians do not deny the awful reality of death, but we do insist that death is not the last word. The last word belongs to God. The last word is not death but life, not suffering but shalom.” I don’t know all the details about what’s on the other side of death but I do know the God who rules over all of it. So I’m not worried. Will I get to see my Granny again? I hope so. Will every meal be Tex-Mex except in heaven I won’t have to have Tums for dessert? That would be awesome too. Will I finally be able to totally give myself over to the God that I have stumbled along in loving and following in this life? Yes, that is true hope of heaven.

In closing I leave you with the first two questions and answers of the Heidelberg Catechism, which is a part of our Presbyterian Book of Confessions.

Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?

A. That I belong—body and soul, in life and in death—not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q. 2. How many things must you know that you may live and die in the blessedness of this comfort?

A. Three. First, the greatness of my sin and wretchedness. Second, how I am freed from all my sins and their wretched consequences. Third, what gratitude I owe to God for such redemption.

What is it that We're Receiving?

Last week I ended my post by saying, “heaven after we die is not the totality of the biblical concept of salvation/eternal life/kingdom of God but merely a part of it,” and I promised to get into that this week. This will take several weeks. Here’s Part I:

Before we start you need to know the word “eschatology,” which according to the Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms means the “study of the ‘last things’ or the end of the world. Theological dimensions include the second coming of Jesus and the last judgment.”

A few years ago I was sitting at a meal for family and friends after the funeral of the son of a parishioner of mine. The funeral was in a different town about 100 miles away at the Roman Catholic Church where he had been very involved. I sat with a bunch of people I don’t know and as I got to talking to the woman beside me she was interested when I told her I was a Presbyterian pastor. She was neither Presbyterian nor Catholic, but a part of an independent church. I assume as a gesture of kindness and hospitality toward me she said, “Doesn’t really matter what church you go to, what it boils down to is that it’s all about getting to heaven.” Over time I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing when is the proper time to verbally disagree with someone and when isn’t, so I just smiled, finished my Jell-O salad, and went to find the deceased’s parents to give them a hug before I left to make the long drive home. “It’s all about getting to heaven,” may be a good representative statement of the beliefs of some churches and many Christians, but it is not a good representative statement of what is in the New Testament.

This is, perhaps, the most important point I will make on the entire subject. The New Testament is not about what happens to us when we die. It comes up occasionally, but that’s not what it’s about. It is a book about what God has done through Jesus Christ and how that has caused the Kingdom of God to break into the world, which pushes us in the direction of God’s final consummation of the Kingdom of God, when as we read at the end of Revelation, God will make a new heaven and a new earth. The New Testament is ultimately not about what happens to us when we die. The New Testament is about the first signs of the end of the “present age” and the coming of the “age to come.”

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that in Matthew’s Gospel, he does not use the phrase “Kingdom of God,” but instead uses the phrase “Kingdom of Heaven.” It is used in exactly the same way as Kingdom of God, and actually a great many of its occurrences are an exact quote from Mark with “Heaven” replacing “God.” Most biblical scholars believe that Matthew did this very intentionally because we’re almost positive that the author of the gospel was a Jewish Christian writing for other Jewish Christians. Because of the commandment against using the Lord’s name in vain, a religious Jew would certainly never pronounce the name of God that is given to Moses at the burning bush, Yahweh (I am who I am), but also may not even say the word “God” in order to protect from never misusing it. So the consensus of biblical scholars is that Matthew, as a Jewish Christian, probably changed Kingdom of God to Kingdom of Heaven because of his own beliefs about the misuse of the name of God and in order to appeal to his Jewish readers. “Kingdom of Heaven” appears only in Matthew’s Gospel, nowhere else in the New Testament.

It might be surprising to some that Jesus never asks anyone in the gospels if they want to go to heaven when they die. Instead, he invites them to enter into the Kingdom of God/Heaven (Matthew, Mark, Luke) or to inherit eternal life (John). His invitations are invitations in the present that have eternal implications. He deals with entering the Kingdom of God now, inheriting eternal life starting now.

The “age to come” has entered into the “present age” through Jesus Christ. It is not completely here and we cannot make it come to completion any faster. That’s in God’s job description, not ours. The “age to come” or the Kingdom of God or Eternal Life goes on into eternity but we can participate in it, albeit incompletely, even now. Think about it this way: don’t you wish you would have gotten in on Apple Computers when it was just a fledgling little company making green screened computers that weighed forty pounds? You could have invested in that early on when it was nothing more than potential and as it came to prominence you would have been able to reap the rewards. Your friends might have thought you were stupid for investing in something that was obviously a pipedream. But had you done it, what would your friends be saying now? We “invest” in the Kingdom of God by following Jesus and trusting in him. It may not look like much now but as Christians we believe that it will eventually whenever God deems the time to be right. But not only that, we live now in the ways that will be universal in the Kingdom of God then. If the poor, the hungry, and the weeping will be blessed in the consummation of the Kingdom of God then we bless them now. One of the Six Great Ends of the Church from our PC(USA) Book of Order is the “exhibition of the Kingdom of God to the world.” The Church is supposed to exhibit to the world now what will be universal later. We are supposed to offer a taste of when God makes all things new. Quite often we don’t do a very good job of that.

Theologian N.T. Wright puts it this way, “By the time of Jesus many Jewish thinkers divided history into two periods: ‘the present age’ and ‘the age to come’—the latter being the time when [God] would at last act decisively to judge evil, to rescue Israel, and to create a new world of justice and peace. The early Christians believed that, though the full blessings of the coming age lay still in the future, it had already begun with Jesus, particularly with his death and resurrection, and that by faith and baptism they were able to enter it already.”

When we look at the letters of Paul, it seems that he mostly deals with salvation as whether or not his readers will be saved from the wrath of God when God finally brings about the “age to come.” Generally, he does not deal with salvation from the perspective of what happens to us when we die. It is quite likely that Paul (and most early Christians) were under the impression that the final consummation of the age to come or the Kingdom of God was at hand, that any day Jesus would return and the new heaven and new earth would come, that all would be judged, and that those who had received the inheritance of eternal life by believing in and following Jesus Christ would be spared from God’s wrath and live eternally in the Kingdom of God. Why talk about what happens when we die when the new age will come fully before that ever happens? In fact, what many scholars believe to be the oldest document in the New Testament, 1 Thessalonians, was written to the Christians in Thessalonica in response to their fear and horror at the fact that some congregation members had died recently. This wasn’t supposed to happen! So what happens to them? Do they just miss out? Paul tells them not to worry. When everything goes down, God will raise the “dead in Christ.” Some Thessalonian Christians were so convinced that the end was coming soon that they quit their jobs to wait for it. In both instances, Paul deals with these quandaries in terms of what will happen eschatologically, at the “end times,” not what happens immediately upon death.

As N.T. Wright mentioned, the early Christian eschatology that is reflected in the New Testament grows organically out of the Jewish eschatology of the time. Jesus, fully divine and fully human (see Nicene Creed), was, in his approximately 33 years on this earth a Jew. As Christians we believe he is also the fulfillment of the promises that had been made by God to the Jewish people and made by God to the whole world through the Jewish people. So it only makes sense that he taught that he was the fulfillment of the Jewish eschatological hopes. The Jewish eschatology was that people just plain died then someday in the future God would resurrect all the dead, judge them as righteous or unrighteous, and those who were righteous would get to enjoy the “age to come” or the Kingdom of God that is free from illness, death, violence, and all forms of suffering, and those who were unrighteous were subject to God’s wrath.

This Jewish eschatology was adapted by the early Christians based upon the teachings of Jesus, but it doesn’t really change as much as you might think. The initial Christian belief seemed to be that Jesus had started that process and it would all happen very soon after his death, resurrection, and ascension. Here are the nuances however: people died then someday in the future God (early Christians believed any day now) would resurrect all the dead, judge them as righteous or unrighteous [with the followers of Jesus being judged based upon his righteousness and not their own], and those who were righteous (in Christ) would get to enjoy the “age to come” or the Kingdom of God that is free from illness, death, violence, and all forms of suffering, and those who were unrighteous were subject to God’s wrath. Because there was no sense that any of them would die before all this happened, the question of what happens to us between when we die and when we are resurrected didn’t really come up. That's why the Thessalonians freaked out.

So if Jesus’ teachings and ministry were not necessarily about what happens to us when we die but about “eschatology,” and the New Testament isn’t really all that concerned about us when we die but when God makes all things new, then what are we supposed to believe happens to us when we die? Well, I didn’t say the Bible doesn’t say anything about it, I just said it isn’t the overall point. Remember 1 Corinthians 15:19, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." But I’m out of time and space so we’ll continue this next week.

In the meantime, if you need some comfort read Romans 14:8 and Question #1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, which is in our PC(USA) Book of Confessions or you can find it several places online.

Thanks again for reading.

The Peace of Christ be with You All

The Difference Between Earning and Receiving

In my sermon this past week called “Get on the Train” I preached about the encounter between Jesus and the rich man who asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mark 10:17-27) Within that sermon I said the following:

So really, when it comes to [the rich man] the question is not whether or not he’s good. This man is the kind of good, decent, religious person that the world could use a lot more of, but maybe this man is hoping that being good is his ticket to eternal life, will earn him a ride on the “kingdom train.” If that is the case then his ticket is already punched. But the problem for this man is that Jesus doesn’t invite people to be good, decent, religious people. Jesus invites people to follow him. You can’t earn eternal life by doing anything. But you can receive it by following the one who gives it.

When I said that, I thought (and mentioned to the congregation) that this statement could probably use some unpacking and that I’d do that in my blog this week. The reason I thought this might need a little more attention is that at one point I said to someone, “Church membership has no bearing on your salvation, but we’d love to have you commit to being a part of this congregation.” The person responded, “I know; you have to earn it [salvation].” I responded, “No, none of us can earn it. We have to receive it.” As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Also, the particular passage that involves the rich man and Jesus can make us wonder, “How can you say you can’t do anything to earn eternal life yet Jesus does, in fact, tell the man to do something? Isn't the selling of all his possessions what this man must do to inherit eternal life?” At first glance it might look this way, but when you look deeper this doesn’t seem to be the case to me. Following Jesus is the important action that needs to be taken here, but Jesus knows that this man’s connection to his wealth is what will keep him from doing that. So the selling of his possessions does not earn him eternal life, it frees him up to accept it. Also, just a note here. This passage isn’t really about the poor per se. Many of Jesus’ statements are directly about the poor, but this isn’t one of them. Here the poor are simply the beneficiaries of what this man needs to do to free himself up to follow Jesus. This passage is about this man (and many like him) who are too attached to something—wealth, pride, relationships, their doubts, etc.—to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Here is a kind of a parable I came up with to help us understand the very important distinction between earning salvation (something we could never do) and receiving it. Remember that parables are metaphors and metaphors always break down at some point, but I think it might help us to get what I mean when I say, “You can’t earn eternal life by doing anything. But you can receive it by following the one who gives it."

You’ve heard about a restaurant where the most wonderful food in the world is served. The problem is that it is not opened to the public, meaning you can’t just walk up to it and get a table. You cannot even call to get a reservation. One day you approach a woman that you’ve heard has something to do with the restaurant. Maybe she’s the manager? Maybe she works there as a server? Maybe she’s even the owner? You’re not sure but you have a pretty good idea that she knows how to get in. You approach her one day and ask, “What do I have to do to get into your restaurant?”

“You can’t do anything to get in.”

“I’ll pay you a million dollars,” you say.

“I don’t want your money,” she responds. “Don’t need it.”

“I will wash the dishes for a month if you just give me a reservation!” you cry, desperately.

“I told you that you can’t earn your way in here and can’t buy your way in here,” she responds, getting a bit agitated with you.

You start to walk off. “If you really want in,” she calls out to you, gesturing for you to come with her. “Follow me.”

“Are you serious? You’ll take my reservation? What an honor! Give me Friday evening at 7:00 pm.”

“I’m not talking about a reservation for later. I mean now. If you want to eat our food then follow me now.”

“But I have meetings to be at and I need to go tell my family and friends that I finally got us in.”

“Cancel your meetings. Tell your friends and family about it later. Plus, you didn’t get yourself in. I invited you. Do you want in or not? If you do, now is the time. Follow me.”

You still can’t believe this is free. There must be a catch. A private meal in the best restaurant in the world! This is surely going to be really expensive. There’s going to be something you have to do to pay this woman back. “Come on, let me pay you for it,” you say as you’re following her in the door. She shakes her head. “Please let me do something so I can feel like I earned this.” She tells you to be quiet.

You walk through a door and down a long hallway. You come to a door where there is a security guard working. The woman walks in ahead of you. The guard stops you. Surely he wants money, right. Maybe he wants you to do something to show that you are worthy to enter the restaurant. Maybe there’s a gourmet food test. You can pass that so you feel pretty good about it. The woman turns back around and says to the guard, “Let him in. He’s with me.” The guard smiles and tells you to enjoy your meal.

As you walk just behind her you ask her again, “How much is this really going to cost me?”

“I’ve already paid for you. You couldn’t afford it anyway.”

“Oh, but I’m very wealthy,” you respond proudly.

“Trust me, you couldn’t afford it.”

“Let me do something to pay for the meal. You can’t just give it away for free.”

“I never said it was free. I just said you’ve already been paid for. It was very costly.”

You keep trying to ask questions, but finally she stops and says, “Look, everybody keeps trying to buy their way in or earn their way in. But their credentials, fame, money, or even good works won’t earn entrance into this restaurant. But if they’d just follow me in, my credentials can get anybody into this place. My parents own it and I’m running it for them. Just trust me and keep following me. You won’t be sorry. Once you taste this food, you’ll find that it’s so good that you won’t just want to eat here; you’ll want to work here. The next thing you know, you’ll be telling everybody you know about it. But when you do that, you need to remember that you can’t get them in. Only I can. When you find someone who’s interested, bring them to me. If they’re willing to follow me in, I’ll vouch for them.”

Does that help at all to understand what I said in my sermon—“You can’t earn eternal life by doing anything. But you can receive it by following the one who gives it”?

Of course all of this also begs these questions: What does it mean to be “saved?” What is “eternal life?” What is the “Kingdom of God?” Are these synonymous? The common association that is made between being saved, eternal life, and the Kingdom of God with heaven after we die is not a very good, at least not a complete, understanding of how these terms are used in the Bible. Please don’t get me wrong; that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in heaven after I die. I most certainly do. Like Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:19, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” What I mean is that heaven after we die is not the totality of the biblical concept of salvation/eternal life/kingdom of God but merely a part of it. But we’ll have to get into that in next week’s blog.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to leave a comment.

Peace.

Look at the Picture We Can See

Because I will be speaking at the Lenten Luncheon this coming Thursday at Grace United Methodist, which means I will need to write two sermons this week, I will not have time to write a new blog post this week. I did not, however, want to skip a week as I know several people (okay, at least four or five) enjoy reading this blog on a weekly basis. So this week I'm posting the devotional column I used to write for the Norman (Oklahoma) Transcript newspaper. This one was from October 9, 2009. I will return with a new post next week.

Last week, our son was putting together a puzzle on the living room floor. The borrowed puzzle was made up of 25 oversized pieces, and this was his first time to assemble it. I was so proud of how he worked diligently, telling us each time we tried to help him that he could do it himself. Over time the picture of a farmer sitting on a tractor came into focus. My son fit the 24th piece in where it belonged. But when he reached for the 25th piece, the final setion of the puzzle, it was nowehere to be found. We checked the box. We looked under the couch. It must have been missing when we borrowed it. How frustrating!

Our son immediately forgot about the picture he had put together, all the work he'd put into those 24 pieces. All he wanted to know for the next hour was, "Where's the other piece?" He didn't notice that the missing piece was really pretty inconsequential, just a piece of sky. We could all see what we were supposed to: the farmer on the tractor. But he didn't care about what he could see; he only cared about what was missing.

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find that in my life of faith, I am kind of like my son with that puzzle. I strive to have an examined faith, a faith that takes into account the difficulties and suffering inherent in life. But sometimes I take it too far. I ask so may questions that I slip past the healthy humility of "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief" (Mark 9:24) to just plain doubt.

While it is essential to admit that we don't have a full understanding of God (even the Apostle Paul admits that in 1 Corinthians 13), sometimes we focus so much on the missing piece that we fail to see the pieces that are there, the picture that has been laid out before us. The questions cease to act as a healthy corrective to the false sense of absolute certainty and begin to disrupt the pieces that are there. Soon we're not just missing one piece, but we've given up and just put the whole thing back in the box and on the shelf.

One time a crowd asked Jesus, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do" (John 6:30)? It seems like a reasonable request until you realize that this is the same crowd that had been present the day before when Jesus miraculously fed 5,000 of them with a couple of fish and five loaves of bread. Of course they had questions; who doesn't? But talk about focusing on the missing piece when there's a wonderful picture right there in front of you!

As Paul writes, until we see God "face to face" there will be questions, and a healthy faith admits that. Sometimes, however, we just have to say, "I sure wish I had that missing piece, but, wow, look at the picture I can see!" After all, having faith does eventually at some point require having some, well, faith.