Heaven

Heaven

Revelation 4-5

            What will heaven be like?  We have only the faintest idea.  Many of us turn to Revelation to find an answer, but this book is only minimally helpful.  In Chapters 4 and 5 we find a picture of a worship-centered paradise—and that is as it should be.  Those who are gathered round the throne are there to worship God, and do so continually.  If we turn to Chapter 21 we find the New Jerusalem descending to a new earth, and God dwelling with humans here rather than we being somewhere “out there.”  So—which is the right one?

            There are probably more jokes about heaven than any other topic—except maybe golf (There are even a few that unite the two.)  The problem with these jokes is that they’re based on human experience, and therefore invalid as pictures of what heaven will be like.  Funny as they may be, they offer us no help.

            Over the centuries, writers have tried to describe heaven.  In her book The Lovely Bones Ann Sebold imagines a heaven that is individual rather than universal.  Each person gets his/her own heaven to live in.  Someone can be in your heaven only if you also wind up in theirs.

            Mitch Albom, the author of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, imagines a similar destination.  Each of us can choose what our heaven will be like and who will be there.  This choice occurs, however, only after we meet five people (we each have our own five) whose task it is to explain our lives to us.  We meet them sequentially, in the order in which they intersected our lives on earth.

            I know there are many other images of heaven, but these examples will help us see the immense difficulty involved in explaining what it will be like.  One thing we can say for certain:  our final destination will not be like those cartoons that show people sitting around on clouds playing harps.  There is no indication we will have any more musical talent there than we’ve had here, and the harp is a difficult instrument to master.

            I turn one last time to the piece of paper entitled “Scraps” which has been sitting on my desk for so long.  One final scrap remains.  Perhaps it is fitting I saved this one for last.

            “Yes,” my friend said.  “I don’t see why there shouldn’t be books in Heaven.  But you will find that your library in Heaven contains only some of the books you had on earth.”

            “Which,” I asked.

            “The ones you gave away or lent.”

            “I hope the lent ones won’t still have all the borrowers’ dirty thumb marks,” said I.

            “Oh yes they will,” he said.  “But just as the wounds of the martyrs have turned into beauties, so you will find that the thumb-marks have turned into beautiful illuminated capitals or exquisite marginal woodcuts.”

            Can we generalize from this image?  Is it possible that what we will have in heaven is that which we have given away on earth?  Could it be that our possessions—the jewels in our crowns so to speak—will be what we’ve done for others.  What if our adornments are the good deeds we’ve done (remember Matthew 25:31-46)?  What if our wardrobe consists of the clothing we’ve given to help keep the poor from being cold?  What if our gold consists of the money we’ve spent to help those in need?  What if the amount of time we get to spend with God is determined by the time we spent doing God’s work on earth?

            What if?