Welcome from Pastor Patrick Curley

What do you think Brian is doing right now? What is he seeing? It’s been almost two months since he went home having finally succumbed to the cancer. These are tricky questions and not just because we aren’t told much about heaven from Scripture. Paul can only say of it to the Corinthians, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” John in his apocalyptic vision recorded in Revelation paints some pretty amazing pictures of heaven too. But how much of this imagery are we to take at face value and how much is used symbolically to make a point without fearing Roman editing or censorship? We don’t know how time is reckoned in heaven either- two months or two millennia may feel quite the same. But whatever it is that Brian’s doing or seeing, it’s good for “to live is Christ, to die is gain.” To behold the beauty of God in His present and immediate, unfiltered glory defies human words and explanation. It is pure joy.

The problem with asking about Brian’s deeds and sights right now is that he still awaits with us the bodily resurrection. He is only spiritually in heaven, a time referred to as the interim state of the soul. But if body and soul can exist apart, do we even need the body in heaven? Why did Jesus assume flesh, die on the cross and rise bodily on the third day if we are to be only floating, afterglows of our former bodies for eternity? Some say it denies what it is to be human, a body and a soul always together, to say our loved ones are aware in heaven while only in their spirits. They would dismiss the whole thing and hope to avoid the Gnostic error by saying Brian is asleep. Scripture does use that term in connection to death but I believe as a euphemism to remove death’s sting in light of Christ’s resurrection. Death is like sleep for the Christian but it isn’t sleep anymore than being baptized into Christ’s death puts us into a coma until the second coming at the end of time.

Many others look to Jesus’ plain words from the cross to the thief crucified with Him on Good Friday, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Jesus Himself released His spirit to the Father’s loving hands while His body was laid to rest in Joseph’s tomb. This wasn’t His divine nature which He was talking about. Moses joined the party with Jesus and Elijah (and Peter, James and John) on the Mount of Transfiguration although his body was buried many centuries before on Mt. Nebo. Paul longs to leave the “tent” of his present, sinful, mortal flesh to be with the Lord in the awaited heavenly dwelling (2 Cor. 5:1-9), writing also, “So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.”

The Christian goal and blessed hope is not to spiritually escape the body as some inherent evil. It is to trust in the body’s recreation at the Judgment Day. But even as our spirit is made alive and set free by grace through faith before this Day, why can’t we also say temporarily that this freedom is lived out after a death before this Day also. We don’t await the forgiveness of sins until Christ’s second coming. Why would we deny our reborn spirits the joy of that atonement until then either? It simply isn’t necessary to pin down exactly what the body, soul, mind and spirit of a man’s being and life are to deny dualism and maintain our true humanity. These are some funky times between heaven and earth and getting there a mystery beyond the blood of Christ that justifies us eternally. But maybe the greatest mark of our humanity is to comfort each other with the immediate, blessed hope of heaven when our loved ones die, not some deep freeze. Instead of splitting theological hairs, may we say with Job, “I know that my Redeemer lives… and after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes.”

I don’t know what Brian is doing in heaven right now, but take heart you who miss him for I know what he is seeing: the smiling face of Jesus, his Lord and Savior, even though, for now, that is through eyes of faith.