Searching for Heaven
Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth.
Colossians 3:1-2 NLT
When my nephew Joey was three or four, we were traveling to the beach for the week with my parents. He and I sat in the back seat together and he leaned in close to me. “Do you smell that?” he asked me. When I replied no, he leaned in closer, putting his little nose close to mine – almost touching. He sniffed the air, asking again, “That – do you smell that?” It tickled me that he thought if my nose was close to his nose, I would be able to smell what he was smelling.
That memory is closely connected to another memory that took place many years later. It was late. Sunday night. The room was dark. My sister Kathy had been waiting for death to come to rescue her from this life of suffering. Cancer was consuming her from the inside and her hope and patience were long gone. She was tied to her hospice bed with tubes delivering release from the constant pain. I was on the reclining chair pulled up as close as possible to her bed. If only I could I would have climbed into her bed with her and placed my own eyes next to her deep brown ones. I was holding onto the same conviction that four-year-old Joey had believed – if I could get close enough, I would be able to see what she was seeing through her eyes.
Because she was seeing Heaven. Earlier, she had revived from her almost constant comatose state to raise her arms – reaching for something she saw in the shadows. Her eyes were wide open, watching intently. She saw things. I was determined to find out what vision played out in our dark night. “Do you see Daddy?” I asked her. “Do you see Gram?” “Are there people there who have come to see you?” She would not respond to my questions. I moved closer, bridging the gap of the bedrail, placing my head beside hers on the pillow, my eyes aligned with hers searching the night.
“It is so beautiful.” This became her words of worship. She wasn’t telling me. She was simply there – experiencing something she had no other words to describe. Breathless, reaching out as if she could touch it, she said that one phrase over and over again, “It is so beautiful. It is so beautiful.” Reaching. Longing to go there.
Minutes passed… many minutes. She was seeing something very real. With all my heart I was longing to see through her eyes. Longing. Suddenly she gasped a deep “Oh…” Me - trying to see what she was seeing, “What are you seeing, Kathy, what are you seeing?” Never taking her eyes away from what was before her, she whispered with awe and reverence and adoration, “Jesus Christ.”
Now I have to tell you, I had heard Kathy say that name many times, but as an unbeliever, it was used as an expression of exasperation or anger. I had never heard her use that tone of voice with that particular name. "Jesus Christ."
Within minutes she lowered her arms, the look of rapture draining from her face. “Are they leaving, Kathy? Are they going away?” I had been expecting her to take her last breath and leave with them… but her eyes closed in disappointment. She finally whispered almost in response to me before falling back asleep. “I always wondered what it would look like… I always wondered…It is so beautiful.”
No eyes have seen, no ears have heard, no mind imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him… but God’s Spirit searches out everything and reveals to us God’s deep secrets. (My paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 2:9-10). God wants us to know what awaits us in His Heaven. That night, God brought Heaven down to reassure Kathy of what was there for her. And in the midst of that beautiful place, someone waited for her. She called him Jesus Christ.
This was something new. Kathy had renounced Jesus in her twenties, converted to Judaism, and had sought to keep the practices of that faith and that heritage. Until two weeks earlier. Somewhere during those last days before Hospice, she had accepted this Jesus as her Savior. She told our mother on a Wednesday afternoon phone call, she told her best friend Carol two nights later as she fought the pain and nausea, she told the visiting Hospice Chaplin the following week as he read Isaiah 53 aloud to her. She asked a night nurse to sing Amazing Grace the Friday evening before this Sunday night time vision. Jesus had become her Christ. Her Messiah. And He revealed to her the beauty of the place he had prepared for her. Heaven.
We don’t talk much about Heaven anymore. Maybe we should.
My friend Susan sent me a book about Heaven. It has sat on my coffee table for a couple of months waiting for me to finish my library books. It is not fiction or hopeful wishing. It is a book about a real place based on ancient writings and the thoughtful teachings of scholars. And it has made my blood run faster. I am recognizing the truth in its words. And I have decided I will read it slowly; underlining and pausing to look up the scripture. And taking notes. And exploring my own experiences with this thing called death and the near glimpses into this place called Heaven.
The lyrics of two songs have been playing in my brain this morning. "Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens…" Thank you, Mr. Byrne. And the insipid "Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try." Which is pretty much meaningless, thank you, John. This is the state of what our culture will tell you about that place on the other side of death. ‘It is nothing.’ ‘It is a vague emptiness.’ So who would care about going there?
But what if it is better than that? Better than anything our eyes have seen, our ears have heard, our mind has imagined? What if God’s Spirit longs to reveal to us this beautiful destination?
I have decided it is a path worthy of exploring.
One other memory is connected with Joey smelling and Kathy seeing. It is the most beautiful, infectious sound of laughter.
This room in Emory’s ICU was filled with bright noonday sunlight. Nancy stood on my mother’s right, I stood on her left. We had just watched Ann literally slide on highly-waxed linoleum floors into the wide-open room, a heavy carry bag – as usual - slung over one shoulder. The bag dropped to the floor and continued its tumble. Leave it to Ann to make a dramatic entrance.
Our mother had suffered a brain-damaging bleed, had been disconnected from all life-prolonging tubes, and was taking her last breaths. I was convinced she was waiting for Ann who had missed her earlier flight from Virginia and had just raced through the hospital and down the hall, panicked and out of breath. She grabbed our mother's hand, saying, "I'm here, Momma." Two final breaths and she was gone.
And that was when I heard it. Laughter that was so beautiful and joyous that it made me laugh out loud. I caught a glimpse of my young mother laughing, her eyes filled with life. She was greeted by both her Joes; her dashingly handsome Joe Farber and her bashfully smiling Joe Tanner. And she was enveloped in the arms of her sisters and her brothers and her mother and her father. The light was bright. They surrounded her in reunion. And they were gone.
How can you possibly hope to live well in this life ignoring the wonders almost visible in the next?
I will think long this week on the new thought shared with me by Jonathan Edwards. You remember learning about the great revivalist preacher, philosopher, theologian in high school American History, don't you? You don't? Well, he wrote something to himself that has piqued my interest. I think it is worth thinking about. I like it much better than the sentiments of David Byrne and John Lennon. It has fascinating potential. Instead of nothing, it entertains the possibility of everything.
“Resolved, to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness, in the other world, as I possibly can.”
Jonathan Edwards
Much happiness. I like the sound of that.
When We All Get To Heaven Casting Crowns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDL85-FoJWg
New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.