When you were a child did you ever wonder what heaven was like?  Where is it?  Is it a place?  What will we do there?  What will our bodies look like?

 

The lyrics to the song I Can Only Imagine by Bart Millard, the lead singer of  Mercy Me, express vividly the imaginings he had surrounding heaven after the death of his father.  Writing this song helped him through his grieving process and allowed him to come to terms with his loss.  I can only imagine.  What it will be like.  When I walk by your side. I can only imagine.  What my eyes will see?  When your face is before me?  I can only imagine.  What would the impact of this song be if we made the words more corporate in nature, reflecting the communion of saints or the heavenly feast? Surrounded by your glory, what will OUR hearts feel?  Will We dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still.  Will We stand in your presence or to Our knees will We fall 

Will WE sing hallelujah, will WE be able to speak at all?  We can only imagine.[1]

 

It seems odd on Good Friday with Jesus hanging on the cross to imagine what heaven is like. The Request  Our Lucan text brings us to the place where Jesus and two criminals are crucified.  The place is simply called “The Skull.”  The people gathered stood by and watched as the leaders and soldiers mocked Jesus.  As we read on we hear a conversation between three dying men.  When one of the criminals crucified with Jesus joins in the mocking, the second criminal rebukes him, Jesus, he says has done nothing wrong.  The second criminal’s remorse is conveyed only by his acknowledgement of their guilt and Jesus’ innocence and by his request that Jesus remember him in Paradise. His request for Jesus to remember him echoes the cries of those in need and those dying in centuries past.  Jesus responds assuring the penitent criminal that he would be with him in Paradise.  This reply grants the man more that he could have ever asked for.  Why would Jesus so readily grant the man’s request?  He was a criminal after all.  Why forgive so quickly?  Perhaps it is because this is what Jesus has spent the last three years doing. 

 

Over and over again Jesus said your sins are forgiven.  Familiar Scene The Crucifixion pictures Jesus dying among the outcasts.  How can this be?  Jesus does not deserve to die among common criminals in such a torturous and gruesome way.  If we stop and think about it that is exactly with whom Jesus spent much of his ministry.  He ministered among the tax collectors, prostitutes, and Samaritans; all those deemed worthless by society.  Like the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame in Jesus’ parable of the great banquet, the criminal would feast with Jesus that day in Paradise.  With bitter irony Jesus brings good news to those who society throws away.  Jesus is counted with the transgressors and bears the sins of many.  Paradise – Remember me in Paradise is the criminal’s request to be forgiven.  The word Paradise is used in our Lucan text to refer to heaven.  Paradise originally meant a garden as in the Garden of Eden in the creation story.  In later Jewish apocalyptic literature it designates the place of the blessed.  For those who lived in hot arid climates Paradise often represented a place with a stream and lush vegetation.[2]   In the movie Field of Dreams, Paradise is a baseball field in Iowa.  In the TV show The Ghost Whisperer, heaven is the light which everyone is to cross over into.  In the movie What Dreams May Come, heaven is memories and imagination.  The story inspired by a novel by Richard Mattheson is founded on an assumption that heaven exists in a state of flux and its inhabitants assume identities that please themselves or us; that having been bound within one identity during life we are set free.[3] 

 

These symbols, images and metaphors of heaven are best understood as ways of talking about God rather than as statements about what we have not yet experienced.  The point of these images is that God presides over this world with tender care that nothing be lost.  In our world we are too much acquainted with both death and loss.  In God there is no loss and the journey of our present life into God’s life is not death.  Eternal life is the gift of God; believing in this gift is a matter of our radical trust.  It is not just a theory about our own immortality.  Christians confidently trust our lives to God’s care and keeping.  God takes us a sinner, cherishes us, judges us in love, and transforms us into God’s image. 

 

The Good News about God’s judgment is our judgment was already made on the cross.   The Promise This promise is for the criminal, and it is for us, for you, for me.  Just as Jesus promised to the criminal “Today you shall be with me in Paradise” our hope is in the love of God graciously made known to us in Jesus Christ.  It is a hope for the whole person, for society and the earth.  It is a hope in the all inclusive love of God who embraces all. It is a radical confidence that all will be well because underneath are the everlasting arms of God. Communal Life I believe this hope is not just individualistic but God calls us to a life of interconnection.  Our hope for life with God should not be merely for our own individual life, but for our social/communal life. Yes, Paradise is in the life to come but we must not forget it should be in the present for all God’s children. 

 

According to Jesus’ parable of the last judgment the one question that will be put to us is whether we fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, visited the sick and those in prison.[4]  Mother Teresa - One night had a dream when she went to the gates of heaven.  And St. Peter said to her Go back to earth.  There are no slums up here.  Living a life for others was truly Paradise for her.[5]   As our lives are transformed and renewed, God challenges us to works of love, to liberate our neighbors from oppression, to communal responsibility, to welcome and to the well-being of all.  It is God who gives and empowers us to accept this option of life and well-being. I challenge you to find Paradise in blessing your neighbor.  Amen

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