“The
oft-cliched Christian notion of heaven – a blissful realm of
harp-strumming angels – has remained a fixture of faith for
centuries,” writes John Murawski in the Washington Post.1
“But scholars on the right and left increasingly say that
comforting belief in an afterlife has no basis in the Bible and would
have sounded bizarre to Jesus and his early followers.” Studying
the Jewish roots of the New Testament has been like the patient
restoration of an ancient fresco, Murawski suggests.
I
like that image because what is so often found by careful restoration
is a greater richness and beauty than we even had before.
What
triggered this press article is the fact that Tom Wright, who is
definitely not on the liberal/progressive side of any theological
debate, has “add[ed] his voice to the chorus” on getting heaven
all wrong. So this isn't the academy debunking orthodox beliefs, and
it's not from people detached from everyday faith or the life of the
church. It arises from careful reading of the Bible and learning
about the culture and faith in which our Christian faith was born.
What is more, it uncovers a deeper faith, a very practical and
purposeful faith, and it doesn't lose any of the comfort for this
life of an after-life to come. Nor does it lose any of the
seriousness for now of an after-life of the negative kind –
remember that this other-worldly concept of heaven came as a two way
package, heaven and hell.
The
Bible speaks clearly about consequences, good and bad, for the life
we live here and now. It makes a difference what we do and who we
trust (have faith in). “I go to prepare a place for you,” says
Jesus. “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” he also
says. But this is talking not about another world, but about this
world. That's what closer study of the Bible is revealing.
N
T Wright takes the basic tenets of the Christian faith seriously and
I regularly use his commentaries on the Gospels for my Sunday
preparation. His dialogue volume with progressive writer Marcus Borg
(who is closer to my own way of thinking), exploring topics such as
the Resurrection, Jesus and God, the Virgin Birth, the Return of
Jesus, stands for me as a reminder of the power of dialogue for
discerning God's Word and not just my own theories. Borg and Wright
have enormous respect for each other and such writers give us so much
more for our own faith and understanding than polemicists at the
extremes like Richard Dawkins.
The
message of the Gospels is of the Kingdom of heaven here and now,
transforming this world to be as God would have it be. This is how
first century Jews who accepted Jesus as the Messiah and became the
church understood it. Because of Christ, people of faith have the
confidence to pray “your will be done on earth as in heaven.”
In
biblical terms, heaven is God's “arena”, life and all reality
operating according to God's dream and will for it. The promise of
God's blessing from the beginning was that “heaven would come
down”, e.g. for Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Israel, the exiles in
Babylon, and Jesus' contemporaries under Roman oppression. It is the
promise of the age to come.
This is N T Wright's translation for what we have read traditionally
as “eternal life” and I like it.
For Biblical faith holds the hope that God will
transform this world, completely transform it from the tangled mess
we know too well to the vision of God's kingdom: peace, justice, and
well-being for all. As Christians we hold that hope too and, with
the Spirit's lead, we are part of God's work doing the transformation
already. Little things maybe, where love is given, hope is shared,
bad habits and structures are changed. But genuine “on earth as it
is in heaven.”
Living
our lives by faith, we are living with a foot already in the
age to come. Rejecting Christ
and his way, our feet are stuck in the mess. Long-term, this choice
affects our soul – our sense of self, our relationships with the
world and other people, and therefore how we can let go of this life
when our time comes. Who we are with God.
The biblical record gives us no certainty about
after death, but one thing is sure: it's okay, because it's in God's
hands. How that is precisely for each of us depends on how we are
with this ultimate Spirit and Source of Life.
Heaven:
Jesus' mission is to bring it to this world, a mission he wants us to
be part of. God's
safe-keeping:
what we trust is ours forever, together with those we love, just as
it is for all of God's good creation.
Shalom
and God bless, Robyn
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