What is Heaven Like?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

‘What is heaven like?’ asked my 8-year-old casually the other morning, the question that every clergy parent dreads because all of a sudden all of your years of theological training flies out the window…

‘Well’, I stumbled, ‘the Bible tells us that Heaven is the realm where God dwells and God is love so it must be a place full of Love’

‘A bit like a realm in Minecraft?’ he asks

‘Maybe, but this realm is real… even more real than the things you can touch in the real world. And we know it will have a big party, the best party ever with a wonderful meal because Jesus gave us a meal before he died to remember him with and, when we celebrate the eucharist, we share that meal and get a glimpse of heaven’

I was just about to congratulate myself on remembering some basic theological points when he then asked:

‘Do you get tired in heaven?’

‘No’ I answered, ‘I don’t think so, because your heavenly body doesn’t wear out like your earthly body does.’

‘Oh’ he said, looking very disappointed … ‘playing tag will be no fun at all then, I’ll never catch my friends if they don’t get tired.’

I should point out that he did give me permission to share that exchange!

Heaven, is not something that most people think about most days. As Christians we pray everyday that God’s Kingdom may come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven, yet most of us are just so tied-up with making it through the day on earth relatively unscathed, that we don’t have much chance to think about what might be beyond.

But it is worth remembering that to not have such thoughts, is the privilege of those us who are not in a period where we are having to face our own mortality or that of someone we love.

If you were at this year’s May Day celebrations, you would have been treated to a beautiful arrangement of Somewhere over the Rainbow sung by Magdalen College Choir. And, as they sang, you might have noticed the incredible moment in which 18,500 people fell silent – suddenly aware, not only of the beauty of the moment, but drawn to consider a beauty that went beyond it. Somewhere, if you like, over the rainbow…

What lies beyond the rainbow in the song is a vision of a place where clouds are parted to reveal blue skies, a place where birds sing, dreams are realised, and the troubles of this present age are far behind us. Something that sounds an awful lot like how the Bible describes Heaven in Revelation: with no more suffering, pain or tears; where creation is renewed, somewhere more real and beautiful than we can imagine, where we dwell in the peace of God’s presence.

But, unlike the song, we do not have to wish upon a star to reach it. Because it has already reached out to us. Heaven, the realm in which God dwells, has been opened to us as God came to dwell among us in the incarnation and show us that the way to our Father’s embrace is not by clicking our heels, following the yellow brick road or even by doing good deeds… but by following Jesus, and choosing him over anything this world can either offer or threaten us with.

This is what Stephen chose in our reading from Acts, as he faced his martyrdom: asking Jesus to receive his spirit and praying ‘Lord do not hold their sin against them’. He did not only follow Jesus in the way he lived, but in the way he died: an innocent man, slain for preaching love and sharing a vision of Heaven. The soon-to-be apostle Paul (then Saul) looked on while Stephen echoed the words Jesus’ spoke from the cross, and told of a vision of the heavens opening and Christ at the Father’s right hand in glory. Stephen knew the cost of his faith, and as Saints throughout the ages have done, continued to proclaim it in word and deed until the very moment of his death.

In this age where many are persecuted for many reasons (their faith, their heritage, or their culture) whether Christian or not, we must unite against the hatred of humanity that chooses destruction over dialogue, and killing over kinship. If there are many dwelling places in our Father’s house, then surely there is enough room for all to live peaceably, differently, and fruitfully side-by-side with our siblings from across the globe.

The vision of the Kingdom is one where all are welcome, all are invited, all are treasured, and all have the same value as beloved children of God, whether they have spent their lives knowing that fact or not.

We may not lead lives as dramatic and well-recorded as the Saints in the Bible, but every day there are individuals across the globe who choose freedom of belief in the face of tyranny, freedom of expression in the face of oppression, and the freedom to love in the face of hate shown toward them.

But we must not allow the frequency of human violence to dull us to its impact: by the time I have finished this sermon, at least one life will have been lost in conflict somewhere in the world. And by the end of the day, over 100 civilians globally will have died because of war (source: United Nations).

We are not powerless.

We are not absolved of care for our kin.

We are not supposed to just shrug and say that this is the status quo or an ‘acceptable loss’. This is children who ask their parents what heaven is like before they go to bed at night, not because they are safe and able to think about such things in abstract. But because there is a good chance they, or their family members, will be dead by the morning.

We humans can do better.

We have a vision of what life can be.

We know what to do in the face of evil, oppression, violence, destruction and death… because we know it does not have the last word: Love does… so we must do what is commanded of us and get down to the business of the Gospel:

We must build relationships, pray for those who persecute as well as those who are persecuted, tend the sick, uphold the weak, bind up the broken hearted, challenge the unjust systems, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and set the oppressed free in our own small, but never insignificant, ways, give to charity, protest peacefully, have awkward conversations with our friends, and make ourselves unpopular for reminding the world that no soul matters less than any other. Not because we are self-righteous, but because God is just.

When Stephen raised his eyes to heaven, he did not see something in the future. He saw a present reality: He saw God, who is merciful, and he died bringing that reality into the awareness of the crowd who stoned him.

Some ignored it, some resisted it, but some were transformed by it.

Stephen reminded us what Jesus told us: That the Kingdom of heaven is not in fact somewhere over a distant rainbow – or a bridge we only cross after our own death.

It is a reality we choose in the here and now. A realm we seek to inhabit as fully as we can in our own earthly lives, and one that we will know in its fullness in the next.

The truth of Easter is that this world is not broken forever. It is a new creation. But it is up to us to continue Christs work and make the transforming love of God known… to join God in his co-creative work of speaking the reality of a restored and renewed creation into being: healing word by healing word, conversation by conversation, peace-talk by peace-talk, and changed heart by changed heart.

Your words and actions have consequences (just probably not the ones you fear). They have consequences because they have an effect on the people and systems around you.

And if they do then that means that you can make a difference. Heaven is not over the rainbow. It’s here, closer than you think. And we, like Stephen, can use our words and our actions to witness to it.

Amen.