Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

8:30 Morning Promise & 11:00 AM traditional services – 11/11/01

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

 

Text: Job 19:23-27; Luke 20:27-38

 

Carved in Stone: What Is & What Ain’t

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What is your idea of heaven?  Is it clouds and pretty girls strumming on golden harps?  Is it a place where dreams do come true?  Is it beautiful colors like the deep and bright oil-based paints in that Robin Williams movie awhile back?

To tell you the truth, I haven’t really taken the time to imagine heaven for some time.  I’d like us all to take some time to do that now. 

On occasion, I’ve given you assignments to do during the sermon time; this will be one of those Sundays.  I’ll give you an assignment, in just a moment, but first I want you to think of some images, some moments that describe what you think heaven might be like.  Maybe people, nature, or animals come to mind, things that will make it feel like a homecoming for you, or wide blue skies, rivers, thrashing oceans to describe how it will feel.  Imagine... 

I’ll tell you what one of my heavenly dreams might be.  I always loved going hunting this time of year with my dad along the Missouri River breaks of Montana.  I loved the steep rolling hills, the crisp air.  I Ioved keeping step with my dad, and quietly, carefully, sneaking up a saddle along a hillside and, sure enough, several deer might be there on the other side…or not.  I think I loved just about every part of it except the death.

Maybe it’s an irrational hope, but I’d like moments like that, at least that feel like that: the excitement, wonder, relationship, life.  That is an image of heaven I’ve carried with me for a long time.

 

Think for a moment yourself, what it might look like… feel like… smell… touch…

And now, I want each of you to get together with one, or two other people—try to find someone that is at least 10 years older or younger than yourself, or a mixed group—and share your thought of heaven with them.  You have about 72 seconds. Do it now…

 

Okay…did you hear some neat ideas?  [Anyone willing to share an image or a thought?]

 

The Bible also has some images of heaven.  Do a reference search in your Bible and read about them—the glass sapphire gleaming walls, happy gurgling rivers, and a city that needs no sun because its light is God.  I think these images in the Bible and the images we just shared with each other are ways that we try to describe in language of images and pictures—really trying to describe a wonder and beauty that we can’t yet get our head around.  All we really know of heaven is a closeness and a relationship with God and each other that has yet to be fully uncovered.  Right now, the images will shift from person to person.  We will use memories, feelings of home or wonder and excitement, to describe something that will be even greater: a full, un-shrouded relationship with our God, heaven.

 

It is something to look forward to, and I also expect to be surprised by a lot of things there—and by the people I see there.  We should certainly expect to be surprised.  For that reason we should stay humble when making any judgements about the extent of God’s mercy, and rightness.  He will not be bound, by any of our Biblical interpretations or rules defining who the "real" Christians are, or who is lost and hopeless. 

We and all those we love will all stand in front of Almighty God.  We will all stand in front of the one who is defined and revealed by his Son, who was willing to die for us and would do it again if he had to—except that he did it once and for all …for all time, and for all.  One of my favorite hymns sings, “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the sea.”  We need to be humbled by that mercy.

I had a mentor who often said, “It is not for us to determine the temperature of hell, nor the furniture of heaven.”  Such things are not certain.

But there are some things of which we are certain: God’s love for his people, that all people will end up in his hands and will.  We know that his will is most just.  He will do what is most good, just and, yes, merciful.  God’s mercy is one thing that was carved in stone.  We can have faith and trust him.

That is why Job in our first lesson—without ever really knowing who Jesus was, but knowing the promise of God’s faithfulness—Job was able to cry out from the midst of all his suffering.  In spite of all the easy but cruel speeches of those gathered around, Job was able to shrug all this off to insist: “O that my words could be written, inscribed, and carved into rock forever: for I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last, after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side.  This my eyes shall behold and nothing else—and how my heart yearns for that day!”

 

Then, we turn to the Gospel lesson where the question wasn’t what heaven might look like.  In Jesus’ day, there was a huge argument, actually, an argument that has lasted to this very day, whether there’s a heaven or no.  In general, the Pharisees believed there was, or would be.  The Sadducees did not.

With all Jesus had been saying about this Kingdom to come, and this Kingdom nearby, they knew Jesus believed in the resurrection.  These Sadducees decided to confront Jesus in public to try to show how silly all this resurrection stuff was.

“Just imagine the awkwardness,” they were saying, “women sometimes marry and are widowed to marry again.  If there’s a heaven—what will we do with such an awkward situation?  Who gets to be the husband?”

Jesus answers, but I hear him saying to the Sadducees—“Quit being such a bunch of rational dorks.”

Can the human mind come up with things of which God hasn’t thought?  I don’t think there will be a complaint box in heaven!  It will be a full relationship with God and each other—and I don’t think social awkwardness is going to be a problem.

More than that, Jesus finishes by pointing out that he IS the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob.  Not WAS, but IS.  God is God of the living…  His desire to be a part of our lives doesn’t end at our death.  It is his eternal desire that gives us our eternal lives.  He is God of the living.  He is your God.

 

The day you were baptized, your name was carved into the Book of Life—carved …engraved …forever.  Now—whenever you hear that you are forgiven, or whenever you accept Christ’s presence into your life at communion, or whenever you respond to your salvation by sharing some of your forgiveness or sharing your sense of assurance with someone else—at that very moment, God is simply tracing your name, already engraved in his book, with his finger.

 

What is carved in the stones of heaven?

You are!

Amen.

 

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