Rethink Heaven
“Rethink Heaven” Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19
“I write these things to you,” says the First Letter of John. ”I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”
In the early days of the Reformation, when Christians disagreed with one another about many things, and there was no pope or common authority who could step in and settle a disagreement, everyone looked to the Scriptures to find support for their position. In that context, one of the things that Martin Luther stressed is that we should not assume that Scripture says what we’ve always thought the Scripture says, but that we should pay careful attention to the actual text of Scripture, to what the words actually say and don’t say.
And I find it interesting that the letter of John – which we’ve been reading every Sunday during the Easter season – ends with these words: ”I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” John does not want us to know that we will have eternal life; John wants us to realize that we have eternal life, present tense, now.
We often assume that “eternal life” is something in the future, it describes going to heaven when we die. I’ve often seen obituaries that begin “On Wednesday, So-and-so was born into eternal life.” The assumption is that this is what faith offers us: eternal life in heaven after we die. In the meantime, it is assumed, we suffer in this dying world, doing the best we can, but if we are faithful we can hope to go to a better place. And it is assumed that the job of the church is to get people ready for the next life – pushing people onto the evacuation helicopters, getting as many as possible safely to a happy and eternal destination.
But if you look at the apostolic sermons in the book of Acts – several of which we’ve read from in this Easter season – the sermons of Peter and Paul announcing the gospel, the good news of Jesus – you will not find them ever saying that believing in the resurrection of Jesus will get you to heaven after you die. Not once. What they always say is this: God sent Jesus into the world to announce the kingdom of God, but the religious and Roman establishments, the church and the state, the powers of this world conspired to put him to death. But God overturned their verdict, God vindicated Jesus and raised him from the dead, and has made the risen Jesus the Lord of the world, the true king and ruler of the universe. And if we repent and put our trust and loyalty in King Jesus, instead of in the kings and priests who wanted him dead, we can participate in this new realm of King Jesus and so we can be saved “from this crooked and perverse generation.” Here and now, not later.
Now, of course, if you belong to Jesus, you are safe – you, like him, have the power of death behind you; you, like him, have defeated the power of death; and so the promise of God is indeed eternal and we can be confident that the kingdom of Jesus lasts forever. This is why life in Jesus is properly and correctly called eternal life – because it is the life of the world that is to come, the life of the world that is set right once and for all by God and so a life that can never be taken away. Because this life does not end, it continues, in ways that we don’t fully understand and can’t fully imagine, even after death. But it begins, not after we die, but right now.
The good news is that Jesus is risen and is the Savior of the world. He is not saving us from the world by taking us to a different and supposedly better place; he is saving the world right now. This is why Jesus in today’s gospel reading prays for his disciples who are in the world, who – Jesus says – he is not taking out of the world, who are in the world even if they don’t belong to the rulers of this world. The disciples of Jesus don’t belong any more to the emperors and high priests of this world, because they belong to King Jesus, the world’s rightful king, who is even now bringing people together in love, reconciling people to one another and to God now, calling and equipping people to spend themselves in service to their neighbors now, repairing the whole world now.
And yet how many Christians have just assumed that God has given up on this world, and think their faith is only about getting out of this messed up world. Are people at each other’s throats, killing their neighbors because they’ve gotten tired of trying to live in peace with them and hoping to fix the world, not by living together with their neighbors in the peaceable kingdom of God, but by getting rid of their neighbors? Literally in Israel and Palestine this week, and even in our country we’re more than a little way down the road that leads to that kind of violence. Some would say this is good because it means the end is near, Jesus is coming back, and then we’ll have the kingdom. Is the climate changing threatening future generations? Some would say that’s fine, hopefully Jesus will come back and rapture believers out of the world before it gets too bad.
But – if we pay attention to what the Scriptures actually say – our hope is not that Jesus will save us from the world, or evacuate us out of the world. Our hope is that Jesus is saving the world right now, that Jesus is saving us in the world right now, and that this salvation is enduring, until death and through death and beyond death.
The Gospel is that the powers and principalities of this world thought they had demonstrated their ultimate power by killing Jesus, but that in raising Jesus from the dead God has revealed who the true King of the Universe really is. The temptation of Christians, as Brian Zahnd once put it, is to demote Jesus from King of the Universe to Secretary of Afterlife Affairs. And yet the Gospel promises us so much more than that.
I am reminded of one of the great Reformation debates that I probably studied many years ago in the seminary, communion. Catholic bread – keep it and we can be in the presence of Jesus 24/7. Swiss reformers – we do it because Jesus said to do it but it’s just us remembering and fulfilling, not real presence. Luther thought both weren’t radical enough.
But somehow I never remember hearing the most important thing Luther said in this debate. The Swiss reformers said Jesus can’t be present in communion because he’s in heaven. Don’t you remember the Creed: “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” You see, Jesus can’t actually be here in communion (or in the proclamation of the Word, or anywhere else in the world for that matter) because Jesus is in heaven. And Luther responded: Yes, I am familiar with the Creed. I believe Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. And where is the right hand of God? Where is God? Everywhere!
It is precisely because Jesus is risen and is ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father that Jesus can be here right now, that Jesus can be present whenever two or three are gathered in his name, that Jesus can be present wherever the gospel is proclaimed and the bread and cup are shared, that Jesus can be our King and Lord here and now – and forever as well. Jesus is not in heaven waiting for us to get there after we die; Jesus has brought heaven to earth and this is how we are with him already, and how he is with us already. And once we have been joined with him nothing, not even death, can separate us from him. And so what Jesus did in the world, once, in Palestine many centuries ago, Jesus can now do everywhere, even here, even now, though the people who believe in his name.
All this was promised and written for you, for “you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”