Heaven

That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Heaven. That’s where we all want to go when we die, right? That’s why we believe isn’t it? Oh, that and the desperate desire not to end up in the other place - .you know…hell. After all isn’t that what we believe? You either end up in heaven or hell. What a horrifying thought. You either believe in the right things about the right person and go to heaven when you die, or…let’s not think abut that. And, probably, most of us don’t. Not really. Because if we really believed that, we might actually have to change how we live. We could have a long discussion about that and maybe one day, we should. But not now. Not in that way at least. Let’s get back to heaven. Jesus doesn’t talk about heaven as being about a place you go when you die. Nether does the rest of the Bible. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, teaches us to pray “your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mat. 6:10). When Paul writes to the Thessalonians he writes that we will meet the LORD in the air (1 Thess. 5:17). Far from meaning we go somewhere “up there” this is a metaphor that would have been familiar to the Thessalonians. It was about someone important coming to your town - a King, who ruled the town already but came to visit. The people would go out to meet them, outside the town and then welcome them into the town. Their rule already existed, but now they were fully present! Jesus talks about God’s rule already being here (he called it the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of heaven) but that we should live in the light of the truth that one day God will come to earth and be here, fully. That’s when his Kingdom will be fully present. But both Jesus and Paul encouraged us to live in the light of that truth: it matters how we live now. We live the values of the Kingdom that is already here but will one day fully come. What has no place here when God comes fully in his kingdom, should have no place now because that Kingdom is already here. What am I saying? Heaven will be here: it will be a new heaven and new earth (Rev. 21:1). So we are already living, partly in heaven. And so we live the values of the Kingdom of God now. You don’t me me to tell you God’s Kingdom is not yet full here. What is happening in the Ukraine is sadly, just one terrible example of that truth. But, if we believe Jesus and Paul, then what we do now, how we respond to what is happening now, is crucial. We live the values of the Kingdom of God. We respond in love. We give, we donate, we pray, we do whatever we can to bring the light of God’s love into this dark world. Not because we are trying to do the right thing to get, ultimately, into heaven, but because the Kingdom of heaven is already here and will one day full come.