At my age - seventy-two - Heaven is on my mind a lot. My father is there, as are my parents-in-law, my son, numerous aunts and uncles, cousins, and dear friends. For many older people, almost everyone they know is already in Heaven by the time they die. What a Greeting Committee!
But I've discovered that my hard-won faith and confidence in a good God Who promises life beyond the grave for all who accept God or search for the truth with a sincere heart, is not understood by non-believers. It's foreign to them. So I ask myself: Why do I have hope?
I believe and hope in Heaven because a faithful, loving God created us, and for God to let our lives end in death while God's life goes on eternally would be unloving, unfaithful of God - and God stays true to Who God is.
Scripture tells us that God loves all that He has created - and to me that means that God wants eternal life for all that He loves and that comes from His hand. And a faithful, loving God would want justice for all His children who have been murdered, who have been the victims of oppressors in this life, and only life beyond death can give recompense to the victims and just
punishment/purification to the perpetrators.
Elizabeth A. Johnson beautifully explains this:
"Logically speaking, faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead is not some weird belief....Rather, it expresses faith in God the Creator in a powerful way. 'In the beginning' the Spirit of God moves over dark chaos and God speaks the word of creation: 'Let there be.' In the resurrection, the Spirit of God moves again over the body of death and God speaks the same word anew: 'Let there be life.' Original creation and new creation: it is the same loving power of God. The Nicene Creed is utterly logical in the way it begins with God who creates heaven and earth, affirms at the mid-point that on the third day Jesus rose again from the dead, and concludes with belief in the resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come. It is one and the same God, 'who gives life to the dead and calls into being the things that do not exist' (Romans 4:17.)
"The resurrection of Jesus did not end the suffering of the world....But Christ crucified and risen discloses the truth that divine justice continuously leavens the world....The victory is won not by the sword of a warrior god but by the power of compassionate love that brings the living God into solidarity with those who suffer in order to heal and set free. The resurrection, then, discloses in a profound way the character of divine mystery: compassionate, faithful, powerfully loving, close even in darkness and failure, bringing forth the new.
"Like the first tomato that ripens in a garden, bringing the promise of the harvest to come, 'Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died' (1 Corinthians 15:20). We see now that the future will be on a universal scale what has already happened in him. Just as the living mystery of God enveloped Jesus at the end of the darkness of death, we too can trust that God will have the last word in our lives as indeed God had the first, and it is the same word: Let there be life." (in "Abounding in Kindness.")
What deep encouragement this is for anyone who is facing the reality of his or her own death. But - also what an encouragement it is for people who are the victims of injustice, who are oppressed, who have been murdered, who have never had the fullness of life here in this world: Jesus' death and resurrection is the pledge of a future for all the violated and the dead, a pledge of justice and new life.
But that new life is the Not-Yet, the Life-to-Come. We still live in the dark, perilous and confusing In-Between.
On Holy Thursday, at 10:30 PM, sitting alone in an open, lighted Church by the tabernacle where Jesus waited for visitors, Paul and I leaped to our feet as one of the front doors opened and a stranger entered out of the night, a jittery young man, probably high on drugs.
"I won't hurt you," he said. "I just got released from prison today and I need money - a five, maybe eight dollars?"
His dark, frantic eyes zoomed back and forth between Paul and me. All I could think of was my friend Sister Karen, strangled to death by a friend high on drugs who wanted her cell phone to sell.
"Give him some money," I said softly to Paul. Paul's eyes telegraphed me "I don't want him to see how much money I have."
"Give me a minute," he said to the stranger and moved into the alcove by the tabernacle where he couldn't be seen so he could open his wallet and pull out some money. A gift which we feared would not be used well. But we were alone. Unprotected.
"He has to pray a minute," I said to the man. Which was true!
"What prison were you released from?" I was trying to engage him in conversation, not just to distract him from what Paul was doing, but because I wanted to see him as a human being. My friend Sister Karen ran a half-way house for ex-prisoners.
"Wende Correctional," he answered.
"Do you have food? A place to stay?"
But he didn't want to either listen or talk to me. "What's Big Guy doing?" He was frantic.
Paul reappeared with a ten. Our stranger grabbed it and disappeared out the door, out of our lives, back into the night, saying "Lock up after me, Big Man."
Feeling guilty but also shaken, realizing the side door was still open, we locked up the front doors that face a busy East Delavan Avenue in the heart of the city. We found out later that our stranger was hitting up many around the church for money, refusing to consider the practical offers of help that many offered him. All I could think, looking into the darkness which had swallowed him up, was "There goes someone's son, someone's father, someone's lover." What a tragic waste of a young life! What a downward spiral for a life which God created with such promise!
Will there be any resurrections during his life, in our lives, the lives of our loved ones? For God's Spirit is always making things new and transforming us, and we all have our stories of transformed lives: a bereaved widow finds a new love; fatherless children receive a new, loving parent; a young man crippled by dyslexia and learning problems finds new self-worth and joy in an affirming job; a man or woman crippled by alcohol or drugs finds lasting, peaceful sobriety. God is always working quiet miracles in our lives without necessarily identifying Himself.
Our lives are a long journey, through places of glorious joy and unspeakable pain. Faith and prayer tell us that God is with us, every step of the way, and experiences of His Presence strengthen our hope in what is to come. For God saves the best, the New Wine, for last: for us in Heaven. Our faith gives us our hope in ultimate new life: "In You, O Lord, I have placed my hope. In eternity, I will not be put to shame."
"Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.' And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new." (Revelations 21: 4-5.)
"Now we are still on the way; we still don't live in sight of what will be. Our situation, so to speak, is the situation of the Easter Vigil. There the Easter candle, as a symbol of Christ's light, is brought into the still dark nave of the church, its light illumines the space, and we can also light our candle from it. But it still shines in the darkness of the church's nave. It is still the Easter vigil. The cry of "maranatha" ("Come, Lord Jesus") from the ancient Christian liturgy of the Eucharist expresses both realities: the Lord is there and yet we still call out for his final coming." (Cardinal Walter Kasper, in "Mercy: the Essence of the Gospel.")
"What Wondrous Love Is This," I sing with wet eyes. I hope in God's merciful love for my son's soul, come fresh and beautiful from His hand and now returned to His hand; I trust Peter is alive and closer to me now than he was in life here. But I want eternity now! I don't want to have to wait!
I think of that young, jittery stranger, high on drugs, who could have been a spiritual son, but who refused to become human and accessible to me. God has given him to me to pray for, for a new transformed life for him. I don't want to have to wait to see his transformation in this life or the next.
I want eternity now! I have to wait. I have to trust that the Light of Life and Love, our Resurrected Lord, mysteriously rises from the empty tomb, leaving behind the winding cloths folded neatly on the floor, no longer needed, and that our souls trail to Heaven after him, full of glory.