heaven is so big

there's no need to look up

The “afterlife” is a topic we are, apparently, quite interested in; what, with all those movies and books. The truth, though, is we are as interested in this topic as we are ill-informed about it. At least from a Christian perspective…

Most talk about the afterlife is, honestly, pure sentimentality and speculation. Which, if that is your thing; fine. Fine as long as we admit this popular speculation is not Christian. Here, try this: next time you read a book or watch a movie on the afterlife, track of how often Jesus shows up. My guess is, it isn’t that often…

Now, I don’t want to be the cranky theologian. The thing, though, is popular depictions of the afterlife can’t even begin to touch the hope and promise Christianity makes about the afterlife…

Those books and movies, for as hopeful as they may seem, are ultimately not Good News. These sentimental conjectures about what lies after this life, trade in true hope for trite platitudes.

No thank you

While the world will always have no problem coming up with nonsense like “now he’s playing the back-nine every day, the weather is perfect and his mai-tai is always chilled,” God can do better. While a nice afternoon on the back-nine may sound like a pleasant Saturday afternoon; if that’s all there is, it isn’t really good news. 

In fact, it always baffles me how Christians will spend their hard-earned money to buy some book about someone’s life-after-death story, when they could just as easily open their Bibles and get the real, good stuff. That’s what Jesus was talking about today in the Gospel. 

What Jesus has to say on the topic is much more hopeful than any movie; what Paul has to proclaim about the promise of the resurrection is much better news than any book. It turns out that not only is it cheaper to read our Bibles, but it is also more faithful and ultimately it’s much more promising…

Let’s listen to Paul again, “let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal.”

No book or movie has ever dared to talk about the afterlife so boldly and hopeful, as dear, old Paul did so long ago. Not only that. No one has ever dared to be so honest and audacious since Paul, either.

Popular sentiment about the afterlife trades in true Good News for some shaky certainty. 

Paul, on the other hand, talks about the afterlife entirely the other way around! Paul admits he can’t be certain about what resurrection life will be like, unlike all those movies. Despite that, though, Paul dares to proclaim his certainty that when the resurrection happens, the dead and the living will all be rescued from the power of Sin and Death; again, unlike any book on the shelves.

All too often, the only way folks can imagine the afterlife is petty. The sinner continues, while this good creation ceases. I hate to tell you, but in that scheme of things; we’re doomed. 

Paul, theologian that he is, has already sniffed out the charade, though. Paul knows that if the Good News is really going to be good, it has to happen in this world that God created, this world where we live and move and have our being. 

Paul knows the resurrection promises something totally new and unexpected that breaks into this world, our lives. Paul knows that if the resurrection is going to be good news at all, the sinner must die so that, that new thing might happen.

Paul won’t give us some celestial golf-course where the sinner always winds up cursing their golfing partners when the ball takes a bad bounce. Paul knows God’s promises are bigger than that, better than that. So Paul can’t help but insist that, although he isn’t sure how, the resurrection will happen here to us. The resurrection will happen in this world because God will take what God has made, and free it from Sin and Death’s destructive power. 

It turns out that the resurrection isn’t escape from this life. No, the resurrection is God’s refusal to let this creation turn in on itself, and wind up destroying itself. The Resurrection is the insistence that God is able to redeem real sinners like us. The resurrection is a Word that is totally new and different, bursting in on this old world and remaking it in God’s image, freeing it from Sin and Death.

That is why Paul’s proclamation about the afterlife is so much more hopeful than any popular book or movie about heaven. Paul insists that God’s Good News is real enough, powerful enough to happen here. 

While the most popular books and movies insist their certainty and deny this life; Paul doesn’t give certainty a second thought and places his trust, instead, in God. God who always works in this world, in our lives - right here, right now.

God doesn’t need to hide some eternal soul in the humans, or some heaven in the clouds. God is able to make resurrection with flesh and blood sinners like you and me. God is able to do that in this world where police are too brutal and criminals are too heartless. 

God is able to create new life, where before there was only dust and ashes. While books and movies can’t dare to imagine it, Paul insists God is able to bring about resurrection in this world where Sin all too often seems to have won. Paul insists God is able to have the last Word in this life where Death seems to have gotten the better of us yet again. 

After all, that’s what God has always been up to. That’s how God loves to work. God loves to take what seems weak and worthless to the world, and make a miracle. God loves to take what’s dead, and raise it. God loves to take what we deem rubbish and bring about salvation.

That’s the story of the cross, that’s the story of Jesus.

That, finally, is why those books and movies on the afterlife don’t have a thing on the promise Paul preaches. Those books and movies know nothing of the foolishness of the cross. These books and movies would rather have pathetic certainty, than what true and living hope possess; Jesus.

To the world, the promise we cling to is so much nonsense, but to those of us who know we’re perishing; it’s the only Word that have ever been truly Good.

So hear this Good Word: God makes resurrection in a place the world has deemed passé. In fact, for better or worse, God has chosen to do it through me, right now, for you. 

You, you who have had to suffer Death’s senseless destruction; know this, God has swallowed all that up. God promises you that God will take what Death has broken, and make it whole again. 

You have this promise, now. 

While this promise may seem as mere words when death comes wreaking havoc; remember this: God’s Word is more powerful than anything. With only a Word God brought forth creation. With only a Word Jesus raised Lazarus. With only a Word God raised Jesus, imperishable. With only a Word, God will redeem creation. 

God has chosen to give you that very Word, now.

Hear this; when we lie you to rest, and we will; we will say the same Word over you, God commanded us to say at your baptism; in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, you belong to God.

Even then, when Death seems to have taken another victim, we will proclaim otherwise. With this Word you are given right now, we will insist, like Paul, that Death hasn’t triumphed. You belong to God; even in death. 

Death’s victory will be short-lived because, God has determined not only to have the first Word over you at baptism, but also the last Word over you at your death.

Yes, for now it is a mystery, but when God speaks the last Word over creation, and God will, then the saying will come true:

“Death swallowed by triumphant Life! / Who got the last word, oh, Death? / Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?”

In a single victorious stroke, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!