Travel Guide to Heaven

Revelation 7:9-17

It appears that a number of people have been making round trips to heaven in recent years. “Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” is a 2010 New York Times best-selling book about a three-year old’s account of going to heaven and meeting Jesus. If you have a hard time believing a three year old, especially when the book is written by his father who happens to be a pastor, you can read another book. “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Near-Death Experience and Journey into the Afterlife” which was written by Dr. Eben Alexander and published last year. Apparently the heavenly travel agency is running a special for doctors, because another new book is out entitled “To Heaven and Back: A Doctor's Extraordinary Account of Her Death, Heaven, Angels, and Life Again: A True Story by Mary C. Neal M.D.

These are just three of the recent and well-publicized accounts of people who say they have been to heaven and back. Personally I don’t know exactly what to make of them, but there seems to be more and more people who say they have had such experiences. Some in this church have had such experiences, and have shared them with me. I respect your experiences and your willingness to share. I have not had any such experience. When I read about the experiences in these books, I don’t know how much of what they experienced are physiological, psychological or spiritual. I guess I won’t know until I die. If I have such an experience, my plan is that I won’t be coming back to write a book about it. When the Lord calls me home – I don’t care how many departed loved ones try to convince me that it is not my time, that I should go back to earth, that I still have work to do, I am going to say, “Lord, Let, someone else do the work. I’m going home to heaven!”

The Book of Revelation is a late first century account of a man who also took a trip to heaven and returned to tell about it. He was named John, and is traditionally identified as the apostle John. But the author of Revelation never identifies himself as the apostle in the book. So it may or not be John, the son of Zebedee, one of Jesus’s original 12 disciples. This John who wrote Revelation was on the Greek island of Patmos and he had one of these round trips to heaven. You can call it a Near Death Experience if you want, or a vision or a religious experience. He calls it a revelation. He saw a door open into heaven and a voice called him to come up, and he did. His account is much more interesting and complete than the paperback bestsellers published these days. This morning we are going to explore one small section of it. I am entitling this message “Travel Guide to Heaven” because that is what Revelation is – or at least parts of it.

Just in case you were planning a trip to heaven sometime, there are some things you ought to know and some people you ought to meet. If you have ever visited a foreign country you likely bought a travel guide, especially if you were going to spend time on your own and not just be with a tour group. The guide books are very good at telling you about sites of historical interest, transportation, lodging and restaurants. But they are not so good telling you about the people. Carol Asher, the pastor at the Congregational Church in Center Harbor recently went on a trip to the Holy Land. But her tour was designed not just to visit the historical, archaeological and religious sites; it was designed also to meet the people of the land - the Christians, Jews and Muslims of that land. I have found that when traveling, meeting people is just as important as seeing the beautiful scenery and tasting new cuisines.

I. In our passage today John saw people in heaven – lots of them. In the modern books about heavenly trips people will talk about maybe meeting a deceased loved one or Jesus or an angel, but that is about it. Heaven is sparsely populated in these modern accounts. I think this is because, if they are real experiences of heaven, these authors are just peeking in the door of heaven and are greeted by family and then had to return home. But John of Revelation got the full tour of heaven, and he saw a lot of people. Our passage begins: “I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

Who are these residents of heaven? Well it is clear that they are not just the chosen people. If we look back at the first half of this chapter 7 we see that the first group of people that John saw in heaven were all Jews. 144,000 of them  - 12,000 from each of twelve tries of Israel. There are lot of arcane interpretations about who these 144, 000 are. For example the Jehovah’s Witnesses says they are all Jehovah’s Witnesses. But it clear to me that they are Jews. This is exactly who a Jew like the apostle John (who I assume is the author) would expect to see in heaven. The Jews are God’s chosen people according to Scripture, and a Jew would expect to see heaven full of Jews. The problem is that every religion thinks they are the ones who have a monopoly on heaven. Each religious group thinks they have the golden ticket on the Polar Express. John thought his people would be in heaven. And when he first looked around his beliefs were confirmed, but then it says, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands….”

This great multitude dwarfed the number of Jews present. You could count the Jews, but this group of Gentiles was so large that it could not be counted. They were from every nation, tribe, people and tongue. In other words heaven is big. There is lots of room in heaven. This tells us that whatever our vision of heaven is and who I there, the reality is bigger than we could imagine. That was the topic of former megachurch pastor Rob Bell’s 2011 book,  Love Wins. Bell is the founder of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. He got in a lot of trouble with fellow evangelicals by suggesting the possibility that Mahatma Gandhi might be in heaven even though he wasn’t a Christian. Bell has a new book out about God that promises to be just as controversial. Personally I am not a universalist; I think the scripture makes it clear that there is a choice to be made. Heaven is not automatic. People have to choose to go to heaven, and not everyone chooses to. That is the price of free will. But I aware enough of my own narrow-mindedness and religious prejudice to conclude that God’s vision of heaven is bigger than mine – and that heaven will certainly include people and peoples I cannot imagine. God’s grace is certainly wider than my grace or most Christian’s grace. As the hymn says, “There's a wideness in God's mercy like the wideness of the sea; there's a kindness in his justice, which is more than liberty. For the love of God is broader than the measure of man's mind; and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.”

Again, who are these people, this great multitude? Where did they come from? That is the question that one of John’s heavenly guides asks him. Verse 13 “Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?” John replies, “I don’t have a clue! You tell me.” (That is the Davis American English translation) Verse 14,” So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

This tells us two important things. First these people came out of what is called the “great tribulation.” A lot of people have wasted a lot of ink and inkjet cartridges writing about this verse. Some people think this refers to the three hundred year persecution of the church that began in the first century and continued until Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire in the fourth century. That makes the most sense in the historical context of when this book was written. But in the last couple of hundred years this passage has been interpreted to refer to a greater persecution which will occur at the end of history. People get out their calculators and predict the years, dates and lengths of the great persecution in the end times. Others take a broader view of history and see that persecution of Christians has been an ongoing affair throughout the millennia. For example, more Christians died by persecution in the 20^th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined! In the 21^st century the persecution seems to getting worse with increasing violence against ancient Christian communities in places like Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Yemen, and Palestine. Christians are becoming extinct in the land of their birth. Christians are being driven out of lands that they have never had to flee before, chiefly because of persecution from radical Islamic groups.

Personally when I read this chapter of Revelation, I refuse to get into prophecy calculations or end times scenarios. I see this chapter as proclaiming a timeless truth. There is a great hymn entitled “Once to Every Man and nation” (unfortunately not in our hymnal) based on a poem “The Present Crisis” by James Lowell. The poem reads in part: “Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne, — Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.” These saints in white robes in Revelation 7 represent those in every generation who were on the scaffold while wrong was on the throne. God kept watch over them even unto death. And in heaven they praise him.

This chapter also says that this multitude “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” This is speaking about forgiveness of sins through faith in Jesus Christ. When interpreting Revelation, one must always remember that the focus is on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. As Christians we understand that salvation comes through Christ. It is not about religion – not even the religion called Christianity. It is not about taking sacraments, following commandments, holding correct doctrine, or being good. It is about being forgiven. And forgiveness is something that happens by the grace of God through faith in Christ – specifically through the Cross of Christ. Beyond that simple gospel truth, salvation is a mystery to me. But I am comfortable with mystery. I don’t feel the need to judge other people about whether or not they are going to heaven.  I leave that up the Judge of all the Earth.  All I know is that I am trusting in the cross of Christ.  What we cannot do for ourselves, God did for us in Christ. God provides the way. He opens the door to heaven all the way. Not just to peek inside the door so you come back and write a bestseller. You don’t get to heaven just by dying, regardless of what the Near Death Experiencers say. We get to heaven by Christ dying and by rising from the dead. That is how this multitude ended up in heaven.

John met some other residents on his trip to heaven according to this passage. It says in verse 11 that John saw “All the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God.”  Angels are the original residents of heaven. You could call them the natives. They are fantastic creatures, when you study what the scriptures say about them and how they are described. But unfortunately I do not have time to get into that. That is a whole sermon in itself. The elders are mentioned in this passage also. Here it doesn’t mean folks over 65. There is no senior discount or special seating for retired folks in heaven. Sorry.  These elders are usually thought by scholars to represent the OT patriarchs or the NT apostles.  Or perhaps not. Maybe they are other people entirely. Jesus said that the first shall be last, and the last first. But there seem to be some special folks in heaven, whoever they are. Then there are the four living creatures. These are fantastic animal like creatures, described earlier in the book, which represent the animal kingdom. Yes, all dogs go to heaven. And cats, too. All of the animal kingdom are represented here. Heaven is not a human only zone.

There are some things that you won’t see in heaven. And these are just as important as what you will see. Our passage says about the multitude of people in heaven, verses 16-17 “They shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any heat; for the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

When you get to heaven, you will see neither hunger nor thirst. You will see no natural catastrophes, nor diseases. And you will see no tears in heaven, for God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  In short, this is saying there will be no more suffering. Suffering is one of the dominant characteristics of our earthly existence. In fact religions like Buddhism have as their main goal the elimination of suffering. The Cross of Jesus Christ tells us that there is no elimination of suffering in this life. We can reduce it, and we should do everything we can to reduce poverty and disease and oppression and injustice. I think that psychological treatment can reduce a lot of psychological suffering from mental illness. I also think that spiritual practices can reduce much of the unnecessary mental and emotional suffering that we put ourselves through. The more we can forgive, the better off we are. The more we can love unconditionally, the happier we will be. The less attached we are to money and possessions, the better off we are. The less dependent we are on people’s or society’s opinions and the more we  care solely about God and his kingdom, the better off we will be. The less we fear death and the ore we trust God for eternal life, the better off we will be.

In short the more we live the heavenly life while in this earthly life, the less suffering we will have I our own hearts and minds, in our families and country and world. When Jesus taught about heaven, he did not just talk about it as a place you go when you die. He did speak about that aspect of heaven also. But he also taught about how the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand now. That was his earliest and dominant message. The Kingdom of heaven is spread abroad across the world and people don’t see it. He even taught that it is within us and around us and in our midst.  This is the practical reality of heaven. Heaven is not just a reward in the sky by and by. It is present here now. God is omnipresent, which means that God just as present here and now as in heaven when we die.  So we do not have to wait until death or a near death experience to reap our eternal reward. We can enjoy in a lot of the qualities of heaven – called the fruit of the Spirit - while still present with our earthly bodies. We can experience – to a greater degree than most of us realize – heaven on earth. We experience it the way those in our passage experience it – by the selfless worship and service of our risen Lord.

On Easter Morning

Luke 24:1-12

Easter Sunday is the most important day of the Christian calendar. It is much more important than Christmas, though you wouldn’t know it by the way our society observes the two holidays. Many more people celebrate Christmas than Easter. But Easter is the more ancient and the more important holiday. Easter is the whole reason we have a religion called Christianity. Christians worship on Sunday every week because Christ rose from the dead on Sunday. So I am glad you are here today on this Easter Sunday morning. At the Sunrise service we looked briefly at the Easter story from John’s point of view in his gospel. In this service we are going to look at as told by Luke.  

1. First on that Easter morning the women brought something to the tomb. Our passage says, “Now on the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they, and certain other women with them, came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared.” The women came to the garden tomb to honor the body of Jesus by treating it with spices as the burial customs of the time required.

Why question for us is this: What do we bring to Christ on this Easter morning? It is said that we only get out of worship as much as we bring to worship. What are we bringing to worship today? I am not talking about money as an offering. This is not an Easter trick to get you to give more money to the church. I will talk about that in the autumn during stewardship time. But today I am talking spiritually. These women did not have to bring anything to the tomb. The gospel of John tells us that when Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus – two of the Jewish leaders, members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, who were secretly disciples of Jesus – buried Jesus in Joseph’s own tomb, they wrapped his body in one hundred pounds of myrrh, aloe and spices.  One hundred pounds is a lot! That was more than adequate to fulfill the obligations of Jewish burial practices. These women had watched them bury Jesus, and they knew that they did not have to bring any more spices. But they did. It says “they brought spices which they had prepared.”

This was not about religious obligation; this was about love. What do you bring to Christ this Easter morning? Do you bring your love? That is what the women were really bringing – expressions of love. We only get out of worship what we bring to worship. We only get out of our relationship to Christ what to bring to that relationship.

2. Second, on Easter morning the women found something at the tomb. Verses 2-3 “But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. Then they went in and did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.” On Easter morning they found the stone rolled away. In other words they found something they did not expect to find. They expected a sealed tomb with a dead body. What they found was an open tomb and no body.

What do you expect to find here today on Easter morning? If you are used to coming to church on Easter Sunday you probably expected to find a few more people than normal in church. You probably expected to find Easter lilies and other flowers decorating the sanctuary. The scent of Easter lilies mingled with the aroma of bacon and eggs and pancakes wafting up from the fellowship hall from the Easter breakfast we had this morning. On Easter morning I expect certain smells when I come to church, and I am was not disappointed this morning. Easter would not be Easter without these smells. I also expect to wake up early on Easter morning while it is still dark and preach in the cold as the sun rises, and that is what happened. If you are liturgically informed you came to church today expecting to see white paraments in place of the purple ones we have used during Lent. You expected to hear some Alleluias in the music, and probably expected to sing “Christ the Lord is risen today!” Easter would not be Easter if I did not sing that resurrection hymn. And of course we could talk about other Easter customs on Easter morning like Easter baskets and Easter candy and Easter eggs and Easter dinner.

But again, I want to talk spiritually now. What did you expect to find spiritually when you came here on this Easter morning? Just Easter hymns and another sermon on the resurrection? Or do you expect to meet the risen Christ here today? For the risen Christ said “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.” “Where two or three of you are gathered together there I will be in in your midst.” When you came in these doors, did you expect to meet the Spirit of the risen Christ today?

3. Third, on Easter morning the women saw something and they heard something. They saw angels and heard them speak. Actually the story says they saw two men in shining garments. And it says that the women were afraid and bowed to the ground before them. The angels spoke to them saying, “Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” In other words they had a spiritual experience or a religious experience. I am a believer in spiritual experiences. I understand that there are varieties of religious experience, as William James said. William James was the Harvard psychologist and philosopher who wrote a famous book by that name. And he lived in Chocorua in the summers and actually died in his summer house in Chocorua in the summer of 1910. There are varieties of religious experiences. I have found that people can have pretty strange religious experiences which confirm to them all sorts of strange religious ideas. So I do not accept religious experiences uncritically. But I also think that spiritual experience is important to the spiritual life.

From my point of view it is important to have a spiritual experience of Christ. Christianity is not just believing certain ideas about Christ. Doctrines are important, but they are not most important. Most important is a spiritual awareness of the risen Lord. When you read the scriptures, that is what come through. These women later at the empty tomb would later have a spiritual encounter with the risen Christ. The disciples were to have experiences of the risen Christ. Even after Jesus no longer physically appeared to people, the Spirit of Christ had an ongoing relationship with his followers and those who lived after that time. Right up to the present time. The core of the Christian gospel is spiritual experience, a spiritual encounter and an ongoing relationship with God through his Son Jesus Christ.

4. Fourth, on Easter morning the women remembered something. The angels said to them, (verses 6-8) “Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again.’ And they remembered His words.” They remembered something vital on Easter morning.

I hope you remember something this Easter morning. I hope it is not that you suddenly remember that left the burner going on the stove or something like that! I hate it when I am leaving on a trip and I suddenly remembered that I left the house unlocked or the heat turned up or something like that. I am talking about remembering what these women remembered. They remembered the words of Jesus. I hope that this service this morning will bring to your mind memories of Christ.

Some people are raised in the church, but in time forget the church. Actually these days fewer and fewer people are raised in the church. There have been studies done what show that fewer and fewer of each generation of Americans are raised in a religious tradition. There used to be a time when almost everyone had a religious upbringing of some type. That was certainly true of my parents’ generation – the WWII generation, known as the Greatest generation. But baby boomers - my generation - left the church in the 1960’s and 70’s. Consequently most of their children were not raised in a church. Even those who were raised in church, many left then the church when they came of age. The pull of our nonreligious culture caused them to reject their upbringing. Then their children - the grandchildren of the Baby Boomers are even less likely to have had a religious upbringing. The sad thing is that when there is no religious instruction in childhood, there is nothing to remember later in life about Christ.

I hope that you have something to remember. I hope that you – like the women in our story – can remember stories of Jesus and words of Jesus. I hope you remember what it felt like to walk with Jesus and talk with Jesus in prayer – to relate to God on a spiritual level. It is easy to ignore the spiritual dimension in our culture. There are so many other things we can do on Sundays rather than worship. And we are so busy. And our society is prejudiced against religious activity and religious belief, in my opinion. But you are here today because you remember enough about how important the spiritual dimension of life is that you are here to worship. I encourage you to nurture those memories, encourage in your soul the spiritual impulse. When we take the time to remember, our lives will open up to the spacious presence of the eternal God.

5. Fifth, on Easter morning the women told something to others. Verses 9-11 “Then they returned from the tomb and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them, who told these things to the apostles. And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.” These women followers of Jesus were the first proclaimers of the Easter message. Before the apostles even believed Jesus had risen from the dead, these women were telling people about it. And they were  not discouraged when the disciples did not believe them. It says here “And their words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.” Modern translations – like the NIV and NLT - say that their words sounded like nonsense.

We are in the same situation as these women today. Our words often sound like nonsense to people. As a preacher of the gospel I am treated like these women were treated. Many people think that I speak religious nonsense when I talk about resurrection. They look at me like I am some strange creature from outer space. I get this a lot at wedding receptions and funeral receptions. Those are the places where nonreligious people tend to come to a religious ceremony. At the reception they get to talk to this strange creature called the Reverend, and inquire about religious subjects in a private and casual way. These gatherings are wonderful opportunities for me to talk to people about spiritual things who would never talk to me in any other setting. They are curious about me, in the way that an anthropologist is curious about the superstitions of some newly discovered tribe in the Amazon. They view my beliefs as superstitions, as remnants of a bygone age, as prescientific myths and legends that no one in their right mind would really believe anymore. It is fun to show them that I am not an alien, that I actually have a brain with critical thinking capabilities, and that the Christian religion is not anti-reason or anti-science. That I am not a fundamentalist nor do I burn Qurans or go knocking on people’s doors like Jehovah Witnesses or Mormons. But I do tell people that I believe in Christ.

As Christians it is important to tell people what we believe. They are not going to get accurate information any other way. They are certainly not going to get it from the popular media. In fact it is more important that you tell people what you believe than that I tell them. They expect it from me. They figure I am paid to do it. But you are not paid to do it. You have an opportunity I will never have because of my office and titles and ordination. People might actually take you seriously. They might think it nonsense, just like the disciples thought the women’s story was nonsense. But maybe not. In any case it is important for our own sense of Christian identity to let people on occasion what we believe. I am not talking about imposing our beliefs of morality on anyone. That is the stereotype that people have of religious people. I am constantly fighting religious stereotypes. I have never seen a believable characterization of clergy in any TV show or movie or novel, for that matter. They are all stereotypes. Hollywood has no idea what to make of real ordinary Christians. That is why it is important that we break the stereotypes by letting people know that Christians are ordinary people with an extraordinary story to tell.

6. Sixth and lastly, on Easter morning a new spiritual reality began. That is what we are celebrating today. On that first Easter the women told the disciples that Jesus had risen from the dead. Their first reaction was that this was crazy talk. But that was not their final opinion. Here in Luke’s account, Peter got thinking about what the women had said. Enough to look into it from himself. It says in verse 12 “But Peter arose and ran to the tomb; and stooping down, he saw the linen cloths lying by themselves; and he departed, marveling to himself at what had happened.”  This visit to the empty tomb was just the beginning of the story for him. Soon the risen Christ would appear to disciple after disciple. In Luke’s gospel this account is followed by the story of two disciples walking on the road to Emmaus and encountering Christ traveling incognito. Then we are told that Jesus appeared to Simon Peter, and then to all eleven of the disciples. Each of the four gospels tell the resurrection stories somewhat differently, but they all agree that Jesus had risen and appeared to the women and men followers of Jesus, both in Judea and in Galilee.

These resurrection appearances were the beginning. Christianity did not end when Jesus disappeared from their sight for the final time. From that moment on Jesus’ presence with his followers was no longer physical but spiritual. For Jesus had said that he would be with us always, even unto the end of the age. Jesus is still alive and he is still here with his people. He is here with us today. The hymn we sang at the Sunrise service says, “I serve a risen Savior, He's in the world today; I know that He is living, Whatever men may say; I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, And just the time I need Him He's always near. He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today! He walks with me and He talks with me Along life's narrow way. He lives, He live, salvation to impart! You ask me how I know He lives: He lives within my heart.”

This is the rest of the story. The Easter story does not end in the first century with characters in robes and sandals. It continues today. We are just as much disciples of Jesus as those first disciples were. We know Jesus just as much as they did. I used to think I would have loved to live in that time and place, and see the living Jesus with my own eyes. If only I had a time machine and could go back to first century Palestine and be a witness to the teachings and miracles of Christ, his crucifixion and especially his resurrection. I could have hidden out near that garden tomb and see the events of Easter morning unfold with my own eyes. Wouldn’t that have been something! But now I know that is unnecessary. Because he lives today. And it is even better today that he lives in us. The spiritual Presence of Christ is in many ways more powerful than his physical presence was. And this is available to us now. On this Easter morning we also meet and know the risen Christ.