{"id":499,"date":"2021-02-11T08:38:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T13:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=499"},"modified":"2021-02-11T08:38:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T13:38:38","slug":"sketches-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/11\/sketches-of-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Sketches of Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

C.S. Lewis once imagined what it would be like to grow up in a prison.

In a sermon that was ultimately published as The<\/em> Weight of Glory<\/em> the British author and theologian crafted a fable in which a woman is incarcerated.\u00a0 She\u2019s expecting a child.\u00a0 Her son arrives and then grows up with her in that dark and limited space.\u00a0

But she\u2019s an artist, and she\u2019s been able to secure pencils and a sketchpad.\u00a0

She draws pictures of the world \u201cout there,\u201d doing her best to reveal to her little boy the wonders of forests, rivers, fields, and mountains.\u00a0 He dreams of personally experiencing those realities one day.

He \u201cknows\u201d something of the world beyond the prison bars, but only by means of two-dimensional sketches.\u00a0 He cannot comprehend the fragrance of hyacinths, the roar of breaking waves, or the icy coolness of snowflakes on his skin.\u00a0 He can discern only the barest outlines of such a world.\u00a0 \u00a0

So it is with the way we tend to picture heaven.\u00a0

Lewis points out that most cultures, historically, have imagined the next world to be far less real than this world.\u00a0 The ancient Greeks pictured Hades, the place of the dead, as a shadowy realm where men and women exist as mere shadows or shades of their former selves.\u00a0 They are drained of energy, joy, and hope.\u00a0 The Hebrews of Old Testament times described Sheol (an undefined place synonymous with \u201cthe grave\u201d) in similar terms.\u00a0

Even contemporary Western civilization has managed to transform heaven into a comparatively boring place.\u00a0 Can you imagine floating on clouds, strumming harps, and singing Handel\u2019s \u201cMessiah\u201d forever<\/em> \u2013 especially if you\u2019ve always had a fear of flying and aren\u2019t a big fan of Baroque music?\u00a0

There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible.\u00a0 Few of them have anything to say about heaven.\u00a0 Scripture is surprisingly shy about depicting Paradise.

Where does that leave us?\u00a0 Trying to imagine heaven by extrapolating from a handful of verses is like attempting to experience the tastes, sounds, and colors of a three-dimensional world by studying some pencil lines on a flat sheet of paper.

Here\u2019s what we know: Heaven will not turn out to be less<\/em> than our present experience.\u00a0 It will be infinitely more.\u00a0 \u00a0

Where do we get this idea?

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright suggests that trying to perceive the future is like peering into a thick bank of fog.\u00a0 We cannot see what lies ahead. \u00a0All of a sudden, someone steps out of the fog and greets us.\u00a0 It\u2019s Jesus.\u00a0 This is the meaning of his resurrection.\u00a0 A real flesh-and-blood person, someone who truly died, left this world and entered the next.\u00a0 All of us will take that trip one day.

But Jesus did something no one else has yet done.\u00a0 He came back.\u00a0

What was Jesus like when he reappeared to his disciples?\u00a0 He was himself.<\/em>\u00a0 His memories, identity, and relationships were intact.\u00a0 Most importantly, he was whole<\/em>.\u00a0 He retained evidence of the wounds he had experienced on Good Friday.\u00a0 But instead of signifying pain, they now represented God\u2019s victory.\u00a0

People may live as if money, status, and beauty are supremely important.\u00a0 That means all we have are a few years in this world to attain them.\u00a0

But humanity\u2019s deepest dreams have always been related to the possibility of a next world.\u00a0 Can anyone survive the grave? \u00a0Will we still be conscious?\u00a0 Will people retain the capacity to think, to work, and to experience joy?\u00a0 Will there be reunions with those we love?\u00a0 Will our wounds at last be healed?\u00a0 \u00a0

Right now, all we have are sketches of a reality we cannot possibly comprehend.

But followers of Jesus have every reason to believe that the fullness of life doesn\u2019t come to a screeching halt in a cemetery.

What else would you expect from a God who raises the dead?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C.S. Lewis once imagined what it would be like to grow up in a prison. In a sermon that was ultimately published as The Weight of Glory the British author and theologian crafted a fable in which a woman is incarcerated.\u00a0 She\u2019s expecting a child.\u00a0 Her son arrives and then grows up with her in that dark and limited space.\u00a0… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-heaven"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}