You Bible scholars among us will know that these first eight
verses of the sixteenth chapter of Mark are known as the "short
ending." The earliest of reliable ancient manuscripts ended
right here: the encounter of the women with the young man in the
tomb where Jesus had been laid...their amazement and terror.
There are no post-resurrection appearances here, just a story
that cries out TO BE CONTINUED. And, as you know, some pious
scribe did exactly that: added the material we have in verses 9
through 20 to bring the story to a more "literarilly-satisfying"
conclusion. Whatever.
Some have defended that effort saying that there is no way
any gospel account of the most important event in human history,
the resurrection of Jesus Christ, could just leave us hanging.
There HAD to have been more. Perhaps the end of the original
manuscript just wore out and was lost from heavy use. I do not
think so. The end of the manuscript did not fall off, or get
worn out. The better explanation, in my view, is that end of the
manuscript is yet to be written, and you and I will have a part
in that!
Yes, we believe in the resurrection. All the religious
polls say so. Even in our religiously pluralistic society, an
astonishing 84% say we believe that Jesus rose from the dead. (1)
Now, juxtapose that with the material we regularly see in the
secular press asking questions about heaven (particularly around
Easter time) and we find intense interest in life beyond THIS
life.
Dr. Peter Kreeft is a professor of philosophy at Boston
College and author of a book entitled Everything You Ever Wanted
to Know About Heaven...but Never Dreamed of Asking. (2) Kreeft
says, "Heaven is the reason that God banged out the Big Bang 18
billion years ago. Next to the idea of God, the idea of heaven
is the greatest idea that has ever entered into the heart of man,
woman or child."
OK. So what is heaven like? The tabloids regularly try to
tell us. Perhaps you remember the headline some years ago,
"Major News Break - Heaven Reported Discovered!" The story
reported that two Russian Cosmonauts, while orbiting the earth in
their spaceship, found that the controls of their space ship were
taken over and the ship flew into a black hole. The cosmonauts
reported that while they were trapped in the black hole, their
spaceship flew to the Gates of Heaven where they met God, heard
heavenly choirs, saw angels, and saw their dead relatives. (3) A
London newspaper said a spaceship had taken photographs of heaven
which showed "translucent buildings, crystal streets, and people
with glowing faces who walk around slowly in old fashioned
clothes. The paper said the pictures had not been released "to
avoid world-wide panic." Another British paper reported that a
London psychic, now deceased, sent word back that heaven is
lovely - parks, schools, theatres, concert halls, grass and
flowers. (4) Wow! If it is in the newspaper at the grocery check-out, I'm convinced. How about you? Oh, and by the way, those
cosmonauts say they used to be atheists, but now they are true
believers. No doubt.
If that does not tell you enough, some preachers will
occasionally add some details. When Billy Graham was first
getting started as an evangelist, he was marvelously specific
about the world to come. Heaven, he said, was a place "as real
as Los Angeles, London, Algiers or Boston." It was "1,600 miles
long, 1,600 miles wide and 1,600 miles high." Once there, "we
are going to sit around the fireplace and have parties, and the
angels will wait on us, and we'll drive down the golden streets
in a yellow Cadillac convertible." Billy Graham went on to a
magnificent career, but he has stopped talking about that
Cadillac... (5) He is much more circumspect in his descriptions
now.
I would love to be able to point you to this or that passage
of scripture to answer our questions about heaven, but no such
passages exist. In fact, except for the rich language of the
book of Revelation, the Bible says precious little about the life
to come. What we "know" (and I use that term reluctantly) is
what we pull together from bits and pieces scattered through the
holy pages.
So, what can we expect when we get there? (And most of us
DO believe we will get there.) Harps? Haloes? Gates of pearl?
Streets of gold?
I love the old story of the rich man who, on his death bed,
negotiated with God to allow him to bring his earthly treasures
with him when he came to heaven. God's reaction was that this
was a most unusual request, but since this man had been
exceptionally faithful, permission was granted to bring along
just one suitcase. The time arrived, the man presented himself
at the pearly gates, suitcase in hand - BOTH hands, actually,
since he had stuffed it with as many bars of gold bullion as
would fit. St. Peter said, "Sorry, you know the rules - you
can't take it with you." But the man protested that God said he
could...one suitcase. St. Peter checked, found out that this one
would be an exception, prepared to let the man enter, then said,
"OK, but I will have to examine the contents before you pass."
He took the suitcase, opened it, saw the gold bars and asked
quizzically, "You brought PAVEMENT?"
The picture of heaven we have in Revelation is poetic, not
photographic. The gates of pearl of which we read consist of one
huge pearl, not lots of little ones glued together. Wow. What
an oyster! The golden streets are so pure that the gold is see-through - like glass. What kind of gold is that? No one has
ever seen such a thing. The writer's point in these descriptions
is that what we will encounter will be nothing like we have on
earth.
In fact, the same is true of our heavenly experiences. We
read of no more sorrow, no more pain, no more tears, no more
death. Heaven is described as the opposite of the things we do
not like on earth.
How about living arrangements? We recall those wonderful
words of Jesus in the King James Bible: "In my Father's house are
many mansions..." (6) More recent translations have rendered
"mansions" as "dwelling places" or "rooms." Those scholars who
know about these things tells us that the accommodations referred
to should be thought of as "rooms on a journey" - motel rooms.
That suggests to me that our earthly pilgrimage will somehow
continue once we get to the other side. Yes, in one sense we
will have "arrived," but I am convinced that mere "arrival" is
not the end of the story. We will continue to grow and mature.
God will not be done with us simply because we are in heaven.
And I, for one, am glad. A life without any capacity for growth
is not appealing at all.
Speaking of not appealing, the picture with which many of us
grew up of everyone gathered around God's throne singing "Holy,
Holy, Holy" forever and ever and ever is surely not. The idea of
the next life being one long, unending church service for most
folks would be hell, not heaven. It has always amazed me that
pious folk who find it difficult to handle that sort of thing for
even an hour a week say they long to be there. Go figure. Just
as so many of our pictures of heaven, this one got its start in
the poetry of Revelation - it was John's word of assurance to a
persecuted little band of believers who could NOT worship freely
or without fear of arrest or even death at the hand of the Roman
authorities. John's word was that a day would come when that
would no longer be a problem. Worship would be open and free and
could go on without worry or fear. Hallelujah!
One more picture of heaven that many would find UNappealing:
no sex. The tabloids say there IS - I distinctly remember
reading that one reported that Natalie Wood and Elvis had gotten
married, and the author of the article reminded us that the
promise he had made to his wife was "till death do us part" -
after that, it's a whole new ball game! (7) Okee Dokee.
The no sex idea got its start in an encounter Jesus had with
some Sadducees who wanted to challenge him on this idea of any
life beyond this life. (8) As you may know, Sadducees did not
believe in life after death; and as one wag has said, that's why
they were "SAD, You See." Anyway, they came to Jesus with this
incredible tale of a woman who was married to seven brothers, one
after another. Their question was, "In the resurrection, whose
wife will she be?" Jesus' response was that this was a stupid
question because in heaven there would not be marriage as we know
it because everyone would be "like angels," which, by
implication, we have taken to mean sex-less.
Is that what it means? I have my doubts. There is an
interesting passage in the late Bishop James Pike's book,
The Other Side, in which there are several reports of
conversations the bishop claims to have had with his dead son,
Jim. On one of these occasions, the bishop and Jim were
discussing Jim's being in heaven and what it was like. Pike
asked if Jim recognized persons there as individuals. Jim
replied that he did, and added that he wanted to know more people
and know them better. "Do you think of people as male and
female?" asked the father. "Is there something like -- like
intimate expression?" The bishop writes:
The terms of the answer seemed almost to express
amusement at my delicacy of expression: It was very
much like Jim. Without a pause: "Sex? Yes, there is
sex. But it is not like it is here. It is not
physical, of course, but actually there is less
limitation. It is more obviously like what sex really
means. Here you actually can enter the whole person.
It is like you are in fact merging - becoming one. (9)
Do you understand that? I don't. To be honest, I doubt
that any of us will ever understand much at all about heaven
until we get there. Some have suggested the reason God did not
tell us more about the resurrection life is that, if we knew
more, we would be so unsatisfied here, that we would be ready to
do whatever it takes to hasten the process of "movin' on up." Or
that we would have our eyes so firmly fixed on heaven that we are
no earthly good. Perhaps. But I am more inclined to think that,
even if we knew more, it would mean nothing to us.
The analogy I use is that of trying to explain the joys of
married love to a little child. When my kids were younger, I
could have sat them on my knee and gone into great detail about
the loving relationship between daddy and mommy. But they would
have had no idea what I was talking about - they were too young
to understand. Now that they are older, I could explain again
and they would be able to grasp it. I suspect it is the same if
God tried to explain heaven to us - the words would be there, but
not the understanding.
It is like the little boy who asked his mom where he had
come from. Mom went into a detailed explanation of human
reproduction to explain the answer as clinically as possible only
to hear her boy respond, "O really? Billy came from Chicago."
There are some things that we cannot hope to understand until we
have reached a certain level of maturity, whether in this life or
in the life to come.
Heaven. Mark's gospel cries out TO BE CONTINUED, and I
would love to be able to answer all your questions about HOW.
But I cannot. I can only offer a glimpse. One of our
generations really GOOD preachers, John Killinger, describes our
situation as being "like that of the goldfish swimming around in
its bowl on the television set, looking out into the room where
we live and trying to understand what it is to be a human being
who resides in a house larger than its fish bowl. Our
imaginations are simply too limited to conceive of the
transformation that will occur when we die. (10)
A little boy was offered the opportunity to select a dog for
his birthday present. At the pet store, he was shown a number of
puppies. From them he picked one whose tail was wagging
furiously. When he was asked why he selected that particular
dog, the little boy said, "I wanted the one with the happy
ending." (11)
Heaven is OUR happy ending. What will it be like? I am not
worried. I will leave that in the hands of my precious Lord who
lived and died and rose again that I might live. By the grace of
my risen Savior, I will rely on the promise of his word: "Eye has
not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into [any]
heart...the things which God has prepared for them that love
him." (12) But today we get just a glimpse. That is why we say
"Happy Easter."
Amen!
1. ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, 3/28/97
2. San Francisco : Harper & Row, 1982
3. Religious News, Arlington, VA , via Internet, http://www.delve.com/heaven.html, 3/96
4. Daniel McDonald, "God's Favorite Number," The Christian Century, 12/12/90, p. 1158
5. David Van Biema, "Does Heaven Exist?" TIME, 3/24/97, pp. 71-78
6. John 14:2
7. Daniel McDonald, ibid.
8. Luke 20:27-38
9. Quoted by John Killinger, "What Is Heaven Like?" Pastor's Education & Book Service,
Fall, 1992, p.11
10. John Killinger, ibid.
11. Bible Illustrator for Windows, (Hiawatha, IO: Parsons Technology, 1994)
12. I Corinthians 2:9
click and send us mail