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A few years ago, Stephan Pastis – creator of the syndicated cartoon strip Pearls Before Swine – depicted his gentle-hearted character Pig in a theology classroom.
His assignment? “Define heaven.”
Pig submits this answer: “All the dogs I’ve ever owned rush out all at once and start licking my face as I laugh uncontrollably.” The theology prof reads Pig’s paper, then turns to his assistant and sighs, “I think technically I have to pass him.”
Everybody has their own ideas about heaven.
Since we’re talking about the ultimate destination for God’s people, most of us have spent at least a little bit of time wondering what it might be like.
When Maria Shriver was married to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, she chose to write a short book called What’s Heaven? Her thoughts were prompted by the questions her children, nieces, and nephews asked her upon the death of their great-grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Shriver writes:
“Heaven is somewhere you believe in… It’s a beautiful place where you can sit on soft clouds and talk to other people who are there. At night you can sit next to the stars, which are the brightest of anywhere in the universe…
“If you’re good throughout your life, then you get to go to heaven… When your life is finished here on earth, God sends angels down to take you up to heaven to be with him… [And Grandma is] alive in me… Most important, she taught me to believe in myself… She’s in a safe place, with the stars, with God and the angels… She is watching over us from up there…”
Shriver’s book became a bestseller. A number of readers have been inspired by her words.
In case you’re wondering where her ideas might be found in Scripture, the answer is, “Nowhere.”
In his book Surprised by Hope, British theologian N.T. Wright observes, “[Shriver’s book] is more or less exactly what millions of people in the Western world have come to believe, to accept as truth, and to teach their children.”
The public imagination has somehow managed to make heaven seem boring – something like a weekend retreat that has gone on way too long. Traditional hymns play on a continuous loop, theological seminars address our most vexing questions, and everyone strums harps on fluffy clouds while admiring favorite constellations.
Forever.
Quite a few of us, if we were being entirely honest, would rather enter Pig’s paradise of being gang-tackled by every pup we have ever known and loved.
What exactly do we learn about heaven on the pages of the Bible?
One of the jarring discoveries that awaits first-time readers is that Scripture says almost nothing about “going to heaven when we die.”
The final chapters of the Bible, in fact, assert that God’s people don’t leave earth and go to heaven. Instead, heaven comes to us. The New Jerusalem (symbolic of God dwelling with his people) descends to earth (check out Revelation 21 and 22).
For centuries, Christian preachers and teachers in the West (not to mention a great many artists) have strongly implied that heaven is a place “up there,” while hell is an abode “down there.” From a biblical perspective, however, it’s more accurate to describe heaven not as a location but simply as God’s domain.
During Bible times, rabbis declared that reality was comprised of “three heavens.” The first heaven is the atmosphere that surrounds us – the air we breathe and the weather outside our windows. The second heaven is the realm of the sun, moon, and stars – the astronomical domain or “outer space” that we observe when we look up.
The third heaven – which the apostle Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 – is the dwelling place of God.
Where is God right now? He’s ruling the cosmos in the invisible world – a fundamental aspect of reality that is currently invisible to human eyes.
And where is this invisible world? We have good reasons to believe it is always here amongst us.
The opening of the Lord’s Prayer, which Jesus teaches his disciples in Matthew 6:9-13, is traditionally rendered, “Our Father, who is in heaven.” The underlying Greek of that second phrase is en tois ouranois, literally “in the heavens.”
Most scholars agree that Jesus isn’t instructing his followers to address a deity who is somewhere far off, tucked away in a corner of the cosmos. Rather, the thrust of his opening words is, “Our Father, who is right here with us” – a perspective that has the potential to revolutionize our thoughts and feelings at the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer.
So, where do we “go” when we die?
The Bible is surprisingly shy about providing details. Medieval paintings depicting men and women ascending into banks of clouds have no doubt colored our imaginations. What we can know with certainty is not the what or the where of heaven, but the who. “Today you shall be with me in Paradise,” Jesus says to the thief on the cross. In the next world, we shall be with our Savior and each other.
If God’s domain is the invisible world that is right here with us, then our experience of death may actually be like stepping from one room to another.
The curtains are suddenly pulled back, and we are finally and fully able to grasp that we have always been in God’s presence. He has always been nearby.
Heaven, someone has observed, is a place of “no mores.” There will be no more tears. No more pain. No more sorrow (Revelation 21:4).
We also have every reason to believe that “no more” will also apply to our sense of disappointment. Note Paul’s stirring words in Ephesians 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…”
We may have deep hopes and vivid imaginations when it comes to heaven.
But what God will actually provide will surely top them all.
None of us will be disappointed – even if we don’t get to sit next to the brightest stars.