Thought for Today

Deuteronomy 1:10 The LORD your God has multiplied you, so that today you are as numerous as the stars of heaven.  

Isaiah 7:11 Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.

Matthew 16:1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven.  

John 14:2 In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?  

Our New Testament reading tomorrow will be John 14:1-14 and includes verse 14:2. That verse is the focus for today’s devotional in These Days. Although the verse does not use the word heaven, most of us understand Jesus to be speaking about our place in eternity, heaven. Jesus instead uses the word μοναὶ, the plural of μονή. The Greek word we translate as heaven is οὐρανός. The meaning of that word is “(1) as the atmosphere directly above the earth sky, air, firmament (MT 6.26; LU 17.24); (2) as the starry heaven firmament, sky (MT 24.29a); (3) as the dwelling place of God.” (Friberg, Analytical Greek Lexicon)

The images of Heaven I remember from my childhood Sunday School books are pictures of gray-haired men and women in long white robes. Those folks had wings, were sitting on clouds in the sky and playing lyres or harps. As a child, my understanding of Heaven was framed by those pictures. Heaven was somewhere up in the sky. Angels were “the line of my people back to the beginning” (from the Viking Funeral Chant) who had preceded me in death and were watching over me. Maybe that sort of image is familiar to some of you. Is that what Heaven is like?

I first began to have trouble with that idea as a teen when I became fascinated with science fiction and stories about space travel. My problems were only compounded when NASA began its program to send men into space. Those problems were exacerbated when Neil Armstrong descended the ladder on the lunar lander and stepped onto the surface of the moon. Had Apollo flown right through Heaven? If so, had all my ancestors been knocked from their clouds?

The Bible never gives us definitive details about Heaven. Regrettably (?), the originators of all those stories were neither architects nor engineers. Jesus was (and is) the Son of God, but Jesus did not give us any specific details in the passage from John. Jesus doesn’t even use the word οὐρανός. Jesus talks about dwelling places.

The author of that devotional today does say, “I have always taken such comfort in the use of the plural in this verse.” I too find comfort in the broad picture Jesus paints of the vastness of God’s ‘house.’ I too believe that our Creator God will include a vast array of diverse people in eternity.

Conversely, I also take great comfort in the ambiguity of our English translation of that verse. In the Greek of John 14:2 the pronoun used is ὑμῖν, the second person, dative plural of σύ. In English, all second person pronouns are translated ‘you,’ regardless of case or number. When I read this verse, I hear in my own mind Jesus’ telling me that I will have a place in eternity prepared especially for me. My own, individual place. Of course, mine will be a double. The Venn diagram representing my place in eternity and Greta’s place in eternity includes Heaven as the place those 2 circles overlap. But, it is a place prepared especially for the 2 of us.

Spend some time today thinking about your own place in Heaven. Try to imagine what it will be like. Will the streets be paved in gold? Will there even be streets? If we are playing harps, I will find a special irony that all that money my parents seemingly wasted on music lessons for me will finally pay off.

How do we understand the unimaginable? How do we describe the unthinkable? If you have never read C. S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, you might want to buy or borrow a copy and read that. “The Great Divorce is a novel by the British author C. S. Lewis, published in 1945, based on a theological dream vision of his in which he reflects on the Christian conceptions of Heaven and Hell.” (en.wikipedia.org) Of course, if you don’t like analogies or metaphors, you probably will not like that book.

I wrote yesterday about trying to understand God. We are just as much ‘at sea,’ in trying to describe Heaven as we are in trying to understand God. But some days, it is fun to imagine.

Stay safe, listen to Jesus, trust God,

Pastor Ray