Is Heaven for Real Pt. 2 Heaven is a Place on Earth Chris Hutton The First Mennonite Church Feb. 12, 2017

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1 Is Heaven for Real Pt. 2 Heaven is a Place on Earth Chris Hutton The First Mennonite Church Feb. 12, 2017 We began our time by watching a clip from the film Forrest Gump where the character of Lt. Dan expresses his disdain for a priest saying that he could walk beside Jesus in the Kingdom of Heaven when he himself actually has no legs. So Lt. Dan takes this whole statement about walking in the kingdom of heaven pretty personally, and understandably too, but this is a metaphor that the Bible uses. The question is what does it mean to walk with God and why is it important? And what does it have to do with Heaven? So we re in Part 2 of our current series, Is Heaven for Real? Last week, we talked about where do we go when we die? What is Heaven like? And we talked about how Heaven is the place somehow outside of our own that we somehow know about where God is preparing a place for us and it is the perfect place of perfect good. Next week, is our Q&A Sunday where we re going to take time to discuss your questions about Heaven and the afterlife. If you haven t thrown in a question yet, please do so by either writing one on a card and dropping it off in the box that we have set up on the desk out front, or you can submit one online via the surveymonkey link that you ll see in your bulletin this morning. We d love to hear your questions on this topic. Last week, we also briefly mentioned towards the end of our time that Heaven isn t just a place that Jesus comes to get us to, but Heaven can also be a place here on earth. We often imagine Heaven as an immaterial space; more like a spiritual dimension than a physical reality. And this is understandable since once we die, something happens to our physical bodies here on earth. And it seems that something immaterial leaves us here in this place, while the material remains behind. But the Hebrew Scriptures and by connection, Jesus, who was Hebrew himself, actually describe something very physical when it comes to the next life. The Hebrew people of Jesus time talked about olam haba, the age to come, or the world to come. They used this phrase to describe the day of the Lord that is described in verses like what we read from the book of Isaiah this morning.. And this is a day where God raises the dead back to life, brings them up from the place of the dead that in Hebrew at the time was referred to as She ol and he creates a new

2 heaven and a new earth, a place where people will build houses and dwell in them, they shall plant vineyards and enjoy their fruit (and all the fruit farmers this morning shout Amen, preach it ) nothing evil or vile shall be done. (Isaiah 65: 21-25, JPS). Speaker and writer Rob Bell says that for the people of Jesus time, olam haba evoked images of soil under the fingernails, grapes being trampled under your feet, fingers sticky from handling fresh fruit. This was no just sitting on clouds playing harps all day. When Jesus rises from the dead, he doesn t appear as a ghost. He does seem to be able to move about in not necessarily a limited physical capacity, like for example at the end of John s gospel, Jesus followers are hiding out behind locked doors because they re afraid of possibly being arrested after Jesus has died on the cross, and John says that Suddenly Jesus was standing there among them! Peace be upon you, he said. (John 20: 19, NLT). Despite the doors being locked, Jesus suddenly appears physically amongst his followers. Michele and I like to sometimes imagine that Jesus followers are huddled together in a circle and Jesus all of a sudden pops out of nowhere and startles all of them. Peace be upon you! And they would all be shocked and accusing Jesus of nearly giving them a heart attack. He seems to be able to move about in mysterious ways, but his body still appears to have physicality. He eats with his followers. He walks with them. He can be touched and held. He possesses the marks of wounds upon his body from his crucifixion. If you have a Bible on you, turn with me to 1 Cor. 15 starting at verse 20. Paul says, But the fact is that Christ has been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great harvest of those who will be raised to life again. The resurrection that Jesus experiences is also expected to be there for us. And now jump ahead to verse 42, Our earthly bodies, which die and decay, will be different when they are resurrected, for they will never die. Our bodies now disappoint us, but when they are raised, they will be full of glory. They are weak now, but when they are raised, they will be full of power. (1 Cor. 15: 42-43, NLT). Now jump ahead over to the next book in the Bible, jump over to 2 Corinthians, also a letter by Paul, Just FYI, people don t often say 2 Corinthians. We commonly say Second Corinthians. That s an inside scoop for you that some people haven t received. Starting at Chapter 5 verse 1, For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down when we die and leave these bodies we will have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long for the day when we will put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will not be spirits without bodies, but we will put on new heavenly bodies. Our dying bodies make us groan and sigh, but it s not that we want to die and have no

3 bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up in everlasting life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit. (2 Cor. 5: 1-5, NLT). Something immaterial leaves our physical bodies here and now when we die, and the Bible seems to suggest that we are either remade into a new heavenly body in Heaven or we will be resurrected into our new heavenly bodies on the day of olam haba, on the day of the Lord, in the world that is to come. We will have fingers that can dig into dirt, feet that can trample on grapes, fingers that can enjoy a really good, sticky fruit. But our new bodies will not die. Our new bodies will be full of glory. The apostle John describes the world that is to come in vivid detail in the last book of the Bible that s named Revelation. We read Chapter 21 this morning. John describes seeing a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, coming together to create a new world. And it s not a monastery, or a pious cathedral, it s a city. A city of people. Sorry to those of you who don t like big cities. I m sure there could be some quieter parts of the city, with some vineyards and fruit farms around. And in this city, there is a river with water flowing like crystal. And trees bearing fruit that John describes as being medicine that will heal the nations. This is no immaterial, pale, austere, clinically clean place. This is a city vibrant with life, and dirt and nature. This city is lush and full of abundance. And in this city, there is no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever. (Rev. 21: 4, NLT). You see many people believe that Christianity is about escapism. We are trying to get out of this world and leave this world behind to die while we go to Heaven. And that actually wasn t the outlook of Jesus or the Hebrew people who followed him. Rather many Christians developed a lot of this kind of outlook from a movement called Gnosticism. Around the 2 nd century, a particularly Greek movement of religious thought begins called Gnosticism and it claims that the physical world, the material world is corrupt and evil. The spiritual world, the immaterial world, is good and perfect. Gnostics believed that we need to do away with flesh, bodies, and nature, and yearn to become completely spiritual beings. And early on in Christian history, Gnostic thought is largely opposed by many Christian leaders, because they understood that the physical world, our bodies, nature, and creation were all very important to God.

4 But many Christians influenced by Gnostic thought started to say that life is all about getting to Heaven and getting away from anything that has to do with this world. And this eventually lead to the line of thought that said, there s no need to care about the environment. There s no need to really care about how we re working to bring peace and justice to other parts of the world. All that s important is getting to Heaven. But Jesus talks about something very different when he describes something he calls the Kingdom of Heaven. In Matt. 4:17, Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. It s close. It s upon you. It s not just in the future. It s also here and now. He says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field, (Matt. 13: 24, NLT). It s like the yeast a woman used in making bread (Matt. 13: 33, NLT). It s like a fishing net that was thrown into the water and caught fish of every kind (Matt. 13: 47, NLT). Jesus uses earthy, physical imagery to describe the Kingdom of Heaven. In one of the more edgier things that Jesus has to say in the Gospel of Matthew 25: 31-46, Jesus describes the day of the Lord as a time when people are gathered up and God asks each of them when I was hungry, did you feed me? When I was thirsty, did you give me drink? And he insinuates that whenever we feed someone in need, whenever we give shelter and drink to anyone in need, we are by extension, doing this for God. Jesus doesn t describe the Kingdom of Heaven as a place where we try to punch our ticket out of this world as quickly as we can, but it is a place that walks in the rhythms of compassion, generosity, and love expressed in physical actions to one another. The Greek word for Kingdom of Heaven, which often you ll also see interchanged for the phrase Kingdom of God, is basileia. And basileia comes from the word basileuo which means Leader of the people or king. Basileuo comes from the word basis which means stepping or walking on a foundation of power or authority. And so the word basileia very much carries this connotation of walking in the way of the king or walking in the way of the kingdom. And so, when Jesus talks about the Kingdom of Heaven, he s talking about walking in the way of Heaven. When we walk in the way of Heaven here on earth, heaven becomes a place very much here on earth. Heaven comes to earth. The future reality that we look forward to comes to the present and shows us the way into our future. This is a picture of an event we participated in last year. This is a potluck meal where many of us who are Mennonite in the area, along with some Quakers, had a potluck meal at the local Masjid al-noor mosque in St. Catharines. You ll see some familiar faces in there, including Bashar and Nizar Dardar from our sponsored family from Syria. In many ways to me, this is an image of Heaven becoming a place

5 on earth. And I think that is what Jesus was talking about when he described walking in the way of Heaven. Eating food together. Community. Laughing. Crying together. Helping one another in need. Being family. Welcoming the stranger. Crossing lines of difference. Holding generosity back from no one. For many Christians, the Beatitudes are considered to be a road map of sorts to the Kingdom of Heaven. A way to walk in the Kingdom of Heaven. Now, the Beatitudes a series of phrases that Jesus uses in the Gospel of Matthew when he gives a particular sermon. They include phrases like Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the humble. Blessed are the meek. And I d like to show you a short clip of the Beatitudes being recited on a public occasion. We watched the occasion where the Beatitudes were read during the Inauguration of President Donald Trump. Well, what do you think? Is the President of the United States walking in the way of the kingdom? Some of us might say, yes. Others of us might say, no. But if we are going to say, No, then I think it s imperative on us to ask ourselves how are we walking in the way of the Kingdom of Heaven? Before I become self-righteous and If I m going to say that someone else is not walking in the way, then how am I actually walking in the way? Because if you ask Mr. Trump, he will tell you, Yes, I m walking in the way of the Kingdom of Heaven. So how am I not like Mr. Trump? And so I have a little homework assignment for you this week, take some time this week. It could be on your own or perhaps over a discussion around the dinner table, go back to the Beatitudes, Matt. 5: 1-16, and take some time to talk about how are we authentically walking in the way of the Beatitudes? And if someone came to me and asked me to explain how Mr. Trump isn t walking in the way of the Beatitudes, how would I explain that to someone? If you re here this morning and you are newer to church, perhaps take some time to read the Beatitudes, Matt. 5: 1-16, for yourself and ask yourself, Does this look like a road map to Heaven? Does this resonate with me somehow? Does this make sense to me? How does your heart and your mind respond to what Jesus says? I d like to close by pointing something out. In Revelation 21, John describes the gates to this new city that God creates, and he describes them as being always open. They never close. It s interesting, why build walls or have a gate, if you never actually close the gate? But there s a word that Jesus often uses to describe people who aren t walking in the way of heaven. He talks about them going to gehenna. Gehenna comes from the Hebrew word gehinnom meaning the place outside of the city of Jerusalem. Some biblical scholars have translated Gehenna, the place outside of the city as Hell.

6 Jesus seems to suggest that some of us will walk in the way of Heaven and we will enter the city. Others will refuse to walk in the way of Heaven, and they will be outside of the city. If the gates to the city are always open? Is God really keeping people out? Or are we keeping ourselves out? I think for some of us when we see or hear about compassion, or we hear about self-sacrifice and service to others, giving up our privileges so that others may be helped, when we hear about giving up hate, extending forgiveness and mercy, I think for some of us we don t want to consider that, and we don t want to be a part of that. I think for some of us we re very attached to the things that give us importance, power, money, and control in this world. And we ve just learned to depend upon these things and become reliant upon them. And when a city is made with open gates that says feed the hungry, give shelter and drink to those in need, give up hate and give up what you have so others can be helped, we don t want to go into that city, and we stay outside. In the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest saves the life of Lt. Dan when Lt. Dan expected to die in war just like every other man in his family had. And he loses both of his legs in the process. Lt. Dan can t understand why his self-meaning has changed and why he must now suffer. And so he becomes bitter, angry, and isolated. He can t understand why people keep talking to him about walking with God in the Kingdom of Heaven. He is outside of the city. But as time goes on, Lt. Dan begins to see how Forrest saved his life that he might go on to become a new blessing to others and Lt. Dan learns how to let go of hate and bitterness. His heart is changed. And for those of you keeping score at home, he also gets new artificial legs and walks again. His magic legs, as Forrest calls them. Rob Bell asks the question, Do we go to Heaven? Or are our hearts transformed to handle Heaven? Jesus says, Don t store up treasures here on earth store your treasures in heaven Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be. (Matt. 6: 19-21, NLT) Jesus says how you walk now in this physical reality, how you walk in the Kingdom of Heaven today, how you care for creation, how you care for your bodies, how you extend compassion, forgiveness, and mercy to others will train us for the day when a new heaven and a new earth come together and a new city invites us inside. This is why we become disciples or students of Christ. To learn how to walk in the way of love now that we might know how to walk in the way of love that is to come. Can we walk with Jesus now in order to walk with him one day in the Kingdom of Heaven?