Images of the heavenly home
Series: Welcome home | Bible text: John 14:2
Those who turn to Jesus Christ are given a dwelling in the heavenly home! Unfortunately, the images of heaven are often so colourless and boring that many do not even look forward to the eternal home. This sermon provides motivating images of heaven. What we believe about the future influences our life in the here and now.
There is almost nothing more beautiful than roaming through the woods on a bike on a late summer day and looking down on Lake Hallwil from a high trail. These colours, these contrasts, this impressive area. I love life in this world! This world is not perfect. There are wars, injuries, pain and bad things that can happen to you. Some things don’t go as they should, but I love living here! That’s why I ask myself: What am I going to do in heaven? Why should I be happy there? I want it to be exciting!
Our images of heaven are often a little strange. We might imagine the retirement home of eternity – except that I don’t have a walker, I have a cloud. On this cloud I lie. Everything is white and quiet. Sometimes the silence is interrupted by zither sounds. I make trips and pass by other clouds where people are also sitting. Some have been there for a very long time. For example Moses, the man who led Israel out of Egypt and had to deal intensely with the stubbornness of the people. Moses still doesn’t like to see people. Because I’m a bit too loud, Peter comes over and says, «Brother Matthias, we’re quiet up here!»
Maybe your idea of heaven goes in a similar direction. Maybe you have nothing to do with God and think: How naive are they? After death everything is over anyway!
Today we want to get rid of old ideas of heaven as best we can and let ourselves be shown anew what God has prepared for us. What is the sky like? What we believe about our future influences our life in the here and now. Unfortunately, because of our limitations, our images of the heavenly home are very truncated and distorted. A little thought experiment: Imagine a man from the Stone Age. To this man, who lived a few thousand years ago, you would now have to explain a smartphone. The more you explain the functions and possibilities, the more he will think that you are pulling his leg. You are simply talking about the fact that he can now make a phone call to a friend who lives in Africa. What is talking on the phone? What is Africa? His friends live with him in the same cave. Then you want to explain to him that he can set up a family chat and use the mobile phone as a navigation device. The Neanderthal looks at you completely perplexed.
We feel the same way about eternity. Our imaginative capacity is not enough for the sky. We may have the internet, Wikipedia, Siri and Alexa, but we still have no idea about the meaning of heaven. That’s why we need good images from the world we live in to give us a glimpse of what awaits us in heaven. God has given glimpses of heaven to some people. (Revelation 21 +22; 1Corinthians 15:12–58; John 14:2; Romans 8:18).
There is even someone who has been to heaven and lived there. Jesus came to earth and told us about it. In John 14:2 he speaks of this: «There are many dwellings in my Father’s house, and I go before to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, would I have told you so?»
Heaven is the house of God. It is not only God’s home, but can also become your home. Jesus has already gone ahead to prepare a beautiful home for us.
The sky is incomparably more beautiful than the world
«But we await the new heavens and the new earth that he has promised»(2 Peter 3:13). When a company releases a new version of a product, it must be an upgrade, an improved version. The new heaven and the new earth will be an unimaginable highly potentised improvement. If this world is already so interesting and worth living in, why should the culmination of life be colourless and simply boring? There are abysmal stories of suffering in this world. We know this in our circles too. Paul compares these sufferings with the glory of the later home: «But I am convinced that our present sufferings are insignificant compared to the glory he will give us later on»(Romans 8:18).
Heaven is your home
God didn’t create heaven for himself and you can now live as a lodger in an 8m2-Rent a flat for CHF 800. No, you are there at home – part of the family. There is the well-known Christmas song «Driving home for Christmas». How nice it is to come home on Christmas Eve after a last stressful day at work. You finally arrive and pull open the door. The smell of roast goose hits you, you hear the familiar voices, you are in familiar surroundings and you know: I am home! A home awaits you in heaven that you can look forward to. Jesus spares no effort to prepare a home for you where you will feel at home.
Heaven is a real place
Heaven is not a nirvana into which we sink, but a real place. No dream, no cloud, no beside, but a physical place with above and below, nature, trees, streets and people. The new heaven and the new earth (Revelation 21:2) are not purely spiritual magnitudes, but like our earth, just perfect. If the imperfect world already contains such glorious colours and natural phenomena, what must the new earth look like! Who planted this lie in our brains that everything in heaven is white? But there is not only nature. Heaven is described as a city. The most beautiful city you have ever seen is a «shithole» in comparison. The heavenly city is compared to a bride who has adorned herself, with pure gold and she will have city walls of diamonds.
In heaven we will have perfect bodies
Heaven is a real place where people do not float around as spirits of the soul on clouds. Paul uses the image of a seed for the human body (1Corinthians 15:35ff). It may be tiny, but there is a whole tree in it. He describes our present bodies as weak. In the heavenly home we will have perfect bodies. We will all be supremely strong – and without strength training.
In heaven there will be no more suffering
These perfect bodies will function absolutely free of complaints. There will be no more sickness – nothing that will keep you awake at night. We will also be perfect spiritually and psychologically: «He will wipe away all their tears, and there will be no more death and mourning and weeping and pain. For the first world with all its calamity has passed away forever»(Revelation 21:4). Heaven is your home – completely without suffering.
In heaven we will reign with Jesus
In the heavenly home we will not be bored, because we are given a task. It is not a job that we do for 8 hours, get some money and are happy when it is over. Jesus gives us responsibility: «If we suffer with him, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will also deny us.»(2 Timothy 2:12). In heaven we will live completely in the centre of our vocation. We will get into a flow at work. We will have so much fun doing what we do. That is why it also makes sense that Jesus says that we are to be faithful here on earth already in small things. We are training for our heavenly home.
Heaven is a place of reunion
I read about an extraordinary love story. C. set off on a four-year trip around the world after graduating from high school with 50 euros in start-up capital. He travelled to 45 countries and covered 100,000 kilometres on foot, by car and on sailing boats. M. learned about this man through an article and wrote to him. They stayed in touch for 15 months and wrote to each other – several pages of messages every day. At some point, M. had had enough. She got on the plane to India and then they stood face to face for the first time. What a moment! C. says about it. «My very first thought when I saw her was, «Oh, she looks so good. I could almost marry her. If that’s not the woman for life, then who is?«Meanwhile, they got married. M. is still blown away by her newlywed husband! She gushes: «The more I get to know him, the more blatant this guy actually is. To this day, I don’t believe that exists. I think one day I wake up and I’m like, «M. what did you dream? You know, there was this guy – great dream, nice.» So someday I’ll still wake up, I’m sure. Sometime.»
In heaven we will be face to face with the heavenly Father for the first time. It will be an incredible experience. And you’re not dreaming. You will never wake up! Everything we experience in prayer with God in this world is a wonderful preliminary skirmish. But the personal encounter is something else again! «My dear friends, we are already the children of God, and what we will be like when Christ returns we cannot even imagine. But we know that when he returns we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is» (1 John 3:2). «Now we see everything only as in a mirror and as in mysterious pictures; but then we will see «God» face to face. When I recognise something now, I only recognise a part of the whole; but then I will know everything as God already knows me now.» (1 Corinthians 13:12; NGÜ). We will also see friends and family again in heaven, but the encounter with God will eclipse everything else.. In an old song it says: «There before the throne in the heavenly country I meet the friends I have known here; yet Jesus and Jesus alone will be the cause of my joy and adoration.»
Are there things in your everyday life right now that want to rob you of joy in the here and now? Financial worries, problems at work, relationship problems, loneliness, injuries, pain or loss? You don’t have to put yourself off to the hereafter. The point is that you can experience heavenly moments in this world. Heaven begins where you let Jesus into your life. He wishes to get more and more space in your heart. All the burdensome things take up space in your heart. Jesus says: I want to live there and give you new hope.
Have you already made a decision for Jesus? Jesus has made a decision. His yes to you is radical. His yes is valid into the infinite. Such a decision is only made by someone who loves radically. This radical love was the reason why Jesus left his home, heaven. Why does he do that? HE had everything in heaven. Only one thing was missing: that is you. Jesus missed you and me so much that he said: I go to the people to tell them who I am, what I am like and what I have prepared for them. This radical love is most evident on the cross. Left and right, criminal men are crucified with him. They scoffed when Jesus was put on the cross. One of the men, hanging on the cross, had a turning point. Suddenly he realised: this is God. Before he died, he could only say the one sentence: «Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom»(Luke 23:42). Jesus does not reproach, but answered: «I assure you: Today you will still be with me in paradise.» Turning to Jesus means getting a home!
Possible questions for the small groups
Read the Bible text: Revelation 21
- What images do you see in your mind’s eye when you think of your heavenly home? Are you happy?
- What new images can be helpful and increase anticipation?
- Why won’t heaven be boring?
- Why did Jesus leave heaven when he had everything?
- How can we help people discover the heavenly home?
- Take a walk during the autumn holidays, admire the colourful nature and imagine the sky!
