Spiritual or Religious?
July 21, 2013And a Little Child Shall Lead Them
August 25, 201328
Jul.
2013
Who is Preparing?”
There is an old joke that a Presbyterian, a Catholic, and a charismatic Christian suddenly died and went to Heaven. Upon arrival at the Pearly Gates, St. Peter said “I’m sorry, but your rooms are not quite ready.” He did not know what to do with them so finally he called the Devil and asked if he would keep them for a couple of days. Satan reluctantly agreed.
A few hours later Satan called back and said “You gotta come and get those guys. The Presbyterian man is organizing everyone, the Catholic man is forgiving everybody, and the charismatic Christian has already raised enough money for air-conditioning.”
We all think about the room we’ll end up in after our earthy life is finished. We even try and prepare for it. A couple of you asked me recently about John chapter 14, a famous passage often read after Easter, in which Jesus talks about Heaven having many rooms, and about how Jesus goes to prepare a place for us there. John 14 is a powerful passage, often shared at funerals, and Jesus’ metaphor that he goes ahead to prepare a place for us has struck a chord with several of you. Several of us talked about neuroscientist Eben Alexander’s bestselling book Proof of Heaven which touches on many of these themes. So I wanted to discuss this passage this morning.
For in it we realize that while so much of the journey of this life can seem about preparation, the real preparing is being done by God. Let us pray.
Gracious Lord. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
When we begin our worship service each Sunday we do so with a prayer of preparation. We do so for several reasons. It quiets things down so we can hear the gathering music. It helps us calm down so we can focus on worship. It settles our hearts and centers our minds so we can worship our creator with our whole body, mind and spirit.
Last week many in South Africa and around the world celebrated Nelson Mandela’s 95th birthday, as he has been recuperating in a hospital. Media reports helped us remember how Mandela spent 27 years in prison, mostly on Robin Island in South Africa. Living in a 7 by 8 foot cell with only a straw mat to sleep on. Mandela was made to work in a rock quarry. But even when he was in jail he wrote, trying to complete a law degree, sometimes landing in solitary confinement for smuggling in news clippings as he put pen to paper.
The Gospel writer John most likely wrote the words we have read this morning as a prisoner in a small cell in the Greek Island of Patmos.
John was likely in chains much of the time and only had a small window to look out as he peered onto the Mediterranean Sea. And there he wrote of Christ’s love made real in times of trial to help inspire Christians during a difficult time for the church, writing that there would be a dwelling place prepared for all those who were being persecuted for their faith.
John wrote that Jesus said, “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places, if it were not so would I have told you I go to prepare a place for you?”
There are four general historic interpretations theologians throughout the ages have posited about the concept of these rooms that Jesus supposedly goes to prepare in Heaven. First is the idea that in Heaven there is a specific place prepared for each person. That God has crafted a resting place for each one of us specifically for us. This interpretation is popular with those who see a correlation between our actions on earth and where we end up.
In other words, depending on how we act and what we do, there may be a room or place for us especially made for us – for better or for worse. We might like this if our actions have gained favor or we may not like it if our actions on earth have been less than virtuous.
Secondly is the idea that far from being so specific, Heaven is a broad space with enough room for everyone. In other words that that the “many dwelling places” imagery means there is enough space for everyone in Heaven. That no one will be excluded from Heaven. This interpretation is favored by universalists who fear that the overcrowding of seven billion people on earth will somehow apply to heaven and people might get crowded out if space were limited or if exclusive views prevail.
The idea that in God’s house there are many rooms is consistent with an idea that the cosmos is broad and Heaven is so big up there that there is enough space for every created soul.
Third is the idea that Heaven, as we understand, it is not actually our final destination. Some look at Jesus as saying “In my father’s house there are many dwelling places” and emphasize the “dwelling places.” Some of the near death experience literature out today is consistent with this vision. The Greek word for dwelling place in this thought means not a final resting place but a temporary abode where souls rest until the final judgment and resurrection. Some followers of Paul favored this approach. They looked to 1 Corinthians 15 and Paul’s focus on the bodily resurrection.
This idea, based on platonic and other Hellenistic influences, holds that when we die our souls go to heaven and stay there in our dwelling place for a time. But our kind of purgatory would end at the second coming of Jesus when our souls would return to the new earth at the end times and be reunited with our newly resurrected and recreated bodies. The idea here is that heaven is not the final destination. There is a progression still on the other side.
Finally is the view that even though Heaven may be a final destination, that even there there is a progression for us still while there. Theologians in this camp translate the idea that rather than there are many dwelling places, to say that the Greek actually says instead there are many “stages.” The idea is that there are many rooms or stages in Heaven and they are set up purposefully. That humans must go through many rooms to get to the ultimate one – the most special room; our final destination with God.
Much like the Hebrew temple in Jerusalem where there are a variety of rooms, but eventually one reaches the inner temple, the holiest of the holy; the place of glory and proximity to God. Here the thought is that even in Heaven we continue to evolve and grow—that God is too amazing for us, God’s light is too bright, that we must progress in Heaven, go through the various rooms in order to finally get to the place of closest proximity and ability to connect with God.
It is like staring into the sun. We’d be blinded at first in Heaven if we reached God immediately after arrival. After all the Bible tells us several times that God is too wonderful to see. So the idea is that we must go through stages and grow to the place where we can finally see God face to face. But that through the life of Jesus, we see God in a new way. And through Jesus, as John writes in chapter 14, we are able to get a glimpse of God.
I’ve been watching a lot of cooking shows recently. Not always by choice. But the one that I do like the best is Barefoot Contessa. I like that show. Of all the cooking shows that is probably the one I find the most accessible. After watching the shows you see they spend about 1% of their time eating and 99% of the time preparing the food. That is because, in no small part, the key to a good meal is the preparation.
In the second famous part of our lesson from John 14, Jesus says that “In my father’s house there are many rooms. If there were not would I have told you I go ahead to prepare a place for you?”
What does it mean that Jesus goes to prepare a place for us?
The framed theologian William Barclay writes that when Jesus said “I am going to prepare a place for you,” he is reiterating one of the great New Testament themes – that Jesus goes on in front of us for us to have someone to follow. Barclay writes that “Jesus opens up a way so that we may follow in his steps. One of the great biblical words which is used to describe Jesus is the word prodromos. It’s used in Hebrews 6 for example. Prodromos translates as forerunner.”
Barclay continues that “In the Roman army at the time, the prodromi were the reconnaissance troops. They went ahead of the main body of the army to blaze the trail and to ensure that it was safe for the rest of the troops to follow. The harbor of Alexandria for example was very difficult to approach. When the great ships came into it, pilot boats were sent out to guide them along the channel into safe waters. The pilot boats were called the prodromos. They went first to make it safe for others to follow.”
Barclay argues that is what Jesus did. He blazed the way to Heaven and to God that we might follow in his steps.” Jesus doesn’t go to prepare a place for us like an innkeeper might make up a room. Rather he clears the path through his atonement and he leaves a path of good works for us to emulate and to try and follow.
Jesus sets out a path for us for eternal life through his atoning sacrifice. But Jesus also prepares the way for us by being the path for us to follow. The model for our living. The light for us to see our way.
Our passage this morning ends with Jesus affirming that if he goes and makes a place for us that is not the last time we will see him. He will return for us. This idea was significant because John 14 is a key portion of what is called Jesus’ farewell discourse, his final statement to his disciples as he was preparing to leave them. In doing so he also assured them that he would be returning.
This is a common theme in the Bible. God prepares a place for us by going ahead and then coming back for us.
God created the world, a home for us, and despite humanity’s disobedience, God chose not to leave us alone but to come for us time and time again. Isaiah called on Israel to make straight the ways of the world in preparation for the Messiah. And went further by stating that every valley shall be raised up and every mountain shall be made low. Only God could do that. It’s clear that God is the one who would be making straight the paths. Israel’s preparation was simply to follow the God who would be coming back for them.
Then John the Baptist quoted Isaiah and called on humanity to be prepare the way for the Lord, for the one who would come after him, the one much greater than he, one who they could not fully prepare for would arrive in an unexpected way as a baby. We recognize this on the second Sunday of Advent each year. And Jesus did come as John foretold.
And now in John 14 at the end of Jesus’ life he calls on his disciples to prepare for his departure, but he again suggests that God is the one doing the real preparing for them. “For if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back for you.”
Jesus did not say very much about what will happen to us when we die or what the room will look like that we go to. But he challenges us, calls us, invites us to put our trust in him and our lives in his hands and to follow him. Our protromos. Our Savior. The one with whom any room becomes a home.
This has been a week of anticipation. Of cicadas departing. Of royal babies arriving. And of flowers blooming. One of my favorite stories this week was the blooming of the titan arum. The so-called “corpse flower” that blossomed this week in the Botanical Gardens. Did any of you go see this? Apparently visitors waited for hours this week to see the blooming of a giant, and I mean giant, flower from Sumatra that oddly smells like rotting flesh so it can attract needed insets.
This plant supposedly invests ten years to produce a flower that lasts only a day or two. What a time of preparation! Ten years, for a short time of beauty mixed with the smell of death. But much of the cycle of this plant and its preparation remains a mystery.
Much of what happens to us after we die remains a mystery as well. What we are promised is that God has something prepared for us. Beauty as a result of preparation. That Jesus prepares the path for us to see what a life lived in love can look like. And that regardless of our interpretation of scripture, its message is that the divine plan ultimately includes us.
Through Jesus, God is doing the preparing. And our task is simply to follow him.
Let us pray. Gracious God, may your spirit call us, cloak us, carry us. As you prepare a place for us, prepare us to follow you. Openly, freely, gratefully. For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen.