Lent day 31

I was in a charity shop yesterday looking for some bits and pieces I can use in church creche and at the same time having a wee think about the blog when all of a sudden it dawned on me that I should be looking into the whole subject of....... heaven. 😀 On the back of the Jen Reese Larcombe clip of the other day and following on from Daniel it seemed the perfect place to go. I felt happy to have landed on that decision and turned round to find myself in front of a bookshelf full of Christian books (every charity shop in N I has at least one shelf of Christian books ) and the first title I laid eyes on was a paperback simply called ' Heaven' 

So that'll be it then.

Heaven in the Bible is:

• The sky, the space beyond our atmosphere, and the abode of God
• The Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus frequently talks about as a present reality with a future final fulfillment.
• God's dwelling place, where Christ is today, and where Christians go when they die.
• The Father's house, a city designed and built by God, and a better country

If we are going to look at what heaven is then I suppose we start in Revelation which is where there is some of the most detailed description of what heaven actually looks like and consists of.  The start of the book says something which I have never noticed before

Revelation Ch 1

'This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon come to pass. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. This is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and obey what is written in it, because the time is near.'

Two things. Firstly God showed Jesus, Jesus showed the angel, the angel showed John John tells us.  Secondly we are supposed to read this out loud.  Not sure why. But John says we will be blessed if we do so.........

The first thing John is shown in the vision is Jesus

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was One like the Son of Man,f dressed in a long robe, with a golden sash around His chest. 14The hair of His head was white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like a blazing fire. 15His feet were like polished bronze refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. 16He held in His right hand seven stars, and a sharp double-edged sword came from His mouth. His face was like the sun shining at its brightest.

17When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. But He placed His right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last, 18the Living One. I was dead, and behold, now I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of Death and of Hades.

This is our Jesus.  This is the one who went to prepare a place for us.  Just think about that for a moment.  This awesome, fearsome, glorious, mighty , holy, powerful resurrected Lord didnt order the servants to prepare us a place.  He has done it Himself.  And that place is heaven.  Heaven did exist before Jesus died and rose again, but I get the feeling that it changed once He sat down at the right hand of the Father.  Im not well versed enough in theology to know, but what if the very first person to enter heaven was the thief on the cross?  What if before that day heaven had only been populated by angels, and after that day the thief was the first one to move into a mansion and live in the presence of this glorious Jesus and get to see the Father and dance on streets paved with gold?  

I dont know what happened to all the people who died before the time of Jesus or when they get to go to heaven. When they died, or when Jesus rose or at some point in the future at the final trumpet call.  But what I do know is that when they and we get there its going to be mind blowing.

Back to Jesus. I think when we read Revelation we have to understand that John is trying to put into words things that just cant be described in language.  I think its perfectly fine to engage our imaginations when reading and ask God to illuminate what we read to give us a sense of what is really being described,   Jesus is standing in the middle of lights.  He is light.  His eyes are fire. He is holding lights in His hand. His face is shining as brightly as the sun shines and His hair is the whitest white.  Everything about this picture is white hot. Holy. Scalding. Dangerous to look at. Atomic bomb blast powerful.  The bit I love most is that His voice is like the roar of mighty waters.  If you have ever stood next to the sea on a stormy day or a waterfall in full flow.....  

Ezekiel 43:2 and I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east. His voice was like the roar of rushing waters, and the land was radiant with his glory.

John isnt the only one who has seen Jesus -the old Testament prophets occasionally got glimpses into heaven too and they saw the same thing. Lots of light and lots of noise.  Im sorry to disappoint those of you who want to sit on a cloud gently strumming a harp for all eternity. 😀  As we delve into what heaven is like we are going to discover its nothing at all like the pictures we have in our minds.