To Infinity & Beyond

CS Lewis, who I’ll be quoting a number of times tonight, was great Christian apologetics author and the writer of the chronicles of Narnia series. He says this:

We have been created for something more – when I first heard about PAD or Post Avatar Depression I laughed!  I thought it was the most ridiculous notion out – I mean really? You’re depressed because you want to live in a world with blue naked people who run in trees. But I did love the movie – and there was definitely something inside of me that longed for that kind of simple, beautiful, adventurous life – I mean who wouldn’t want to ride a dragon? 

But then it struck me that these longings, these desires for beauty and purity and simplicity and harmony were natural – we’ve been created to desire these things because there is something that will fulfil them. Just as we have been given a stomach with hunger signals so that we feed it , so too we’ve been given souls with perfection signals, because we were created for Eden… not earth. 

 So those struggling with post avatar depression are simply seeing the truth that sometimes we are blind to. The full quote of the guy who they spoke of on CNN was

“When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning. It just seems so … meaningless. I still don’t really see any reason to keep … doing things at all. I live in a dying world.”


Sounds a lot like an ancient wise man who said, “Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind…” Eccl 2:11

Maybe these guys have actually got it right, maybe they’ve seen some truth which we’ve failed to notice. The fact is that we have been tricked into thinking that this is all there is… that what you can see and taste and touch and experience here – this is it. 

And so we chase after each new experience hoping that this will be the one thing that will satisfy. If only I were married – then my life would be great. If only I could make the first team. If only my family was together. If only we had enough money to buy a car. If only I could get a better more satisfying job. If only my partner treated me better. If only my parents gave me more freedom. If only I could feel God more – or I could sort out my quiet times. If only God would speak to me… and we chase after experiences expecting them to satisfy, but when we get there we find we that not only are we not satisfied, but we’re even more disillusioned than before. Many people spend their whole lives in this place but the reality is – nothing in this world is going to satisfy you. Everything here is simply a foretaste, a glimpse of the real thing. They’re all very good things – but they were never meant to satisfy.
Paul writes in 1 Cor 13:12  “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
Just a foretaste.

As a child, I used to go with my father who ran the comrades and numerous other marathons. We would often man water and sponge stations along the route and wave him by. It’s a little bit like that, in the race of life there are all these wonderful places along the way, watering-stations if you like… but if my dad were to stop and stay at one of the stations, what would be the point? Well I don’t need to press on he says, everything I need is here. But ultimately he’ll find himself completely dissatisfied – he has been training to finish the race, and that’s where the satisfaction comes, not at points along the way.  I mean what runner endures the punishment of training to settle for a lesser prize than finishing the race? Who runs the race for the cups of water along the way?

“Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us…”

I think so often we chase after cup bearers who promise sips of refreshing water when the finish line waits unclaimed. It’s not that we deny ourselves this water… it’s the end though that must hold our focus.

Another way of looking at it that might resonate more with the ladies would be a bride-to-be… preparing for her wedding day. I remember when Tim proposed how immensely happy I was, and that I didn’t want to wait any longer than we absolutely had to in order to be married. My happiness was evident to everyone who knew me. The hours of preparation it took, for one afternoon event amazed me. Cakes to be baked, dresses to be made, dances and speeches to be practised… and there were times when you ask yourself – why not just tie the knot at a court and be done with it?

The reason is Hope. As a bride there is this inexpressible hope for her marriage and the ceremony is a celebration of that hope and dream. I spent all that time dreaming and hoping and working towards a marriage. But not everyone does – many people especially today miss this end goal and simply continue to date and miss out on the beauty of a committed life together… in the case of Tim and I we were waiting for everything, to live together to have the promise of a commitment of forever-ness – and on that day two years ago, everything changed. Everything that was dreamt of and planned came to pass. 

CS Lewis again writes

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

And thus we spend our lives looking down and playing in the mud, settling for what we have here and now and desperately hoping that the dating, that the cups of water, that the mud pies will satisfy when we have been made for finish lines, for marriages, for the seaside. We have been made for heaven.

 Randy Alcorn an American author, who has published a number of books on heaven, summed it up by saying:
“Nothing is more often misdiagnosed than our homesickness for Heaven. We think that what we want is sex, drugs, alcohol, a new job, a raise, a doctorate, a spouse, a large-screen television, a new car, a cabin in the woods, a condo in Hawaii. What we really want is the person we were made for, Jesus, and the place we were made for, Heaven. Nothing less can satisfy.”

I have to admit that until recently Heaven was not so big on my Agenda of things to consider and think about. If you had asked me about Heaven I would easily have told you how it starts here and how our job was to simply start building the Kingdom here, and start spreading God’s love and truth and justice around us. All of which is good and true and I still firmly believe it…

But then Kingsley, our minister died.

And I literally fell to pieces. I felt as though my world had stopped whilst everyone else’s continued to turn. And this baffled me. I mean if I truly believed in where he was going why was I so devastated? I found myself amazed by the concept that if Kingsley had left to some far off place, to a better church where he could minister but somewhere where I couldn’t contact him or see him again – I would have been sad, but nowhere near to this grief that ripped through my heart. What was the difference? In both cases I would never see my beloved minister again, but in the case of him moving away, he would have been going to a reality that was concrete and defined and tangible. Through his death however, he was entering a reality that was largely uninformed. Yes there is heaven and glory and all that Christian talk, but nothing tangible. Heaven was simply a word on a page or spoken at the funeral. Happiness is so easily defeated by death because death is far more real to us that the bliss that follows. 

So what have we been told about Heaven then?

Firstly Phil 3:20 tells us that we are citizens of heaven – that it is our Home! It will be the place where we feel at ease and most ourselves – it was what we were made for. Jesus also tells us that not only is it our home, but he’s actually created a special place just for you. It is where we will have rewards and treasures stored up for us, treasures that do not fade or rust or get stolen. An inheritance awaits us, you are written into God’s will, and when you die you step into that inheritance. 

Isaiah paints a beautiful picture in chapter 11,

“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him and his place of rest will be glorious.”

Perhaps Avatar is not too far off on this one – a place of peace and harmony with nature. This is where many believe that we will be returning to a form of Eden once again.

Revelation 14 actually tells us how blessed it is to die,

“Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on…”

But my favourite passage on this would have to be Rev 21

 “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Heaven is a place of relationship. It is a place where the most beautiful and important things of this life are taken to their utmost. Now we can pray to God and feel his presence – there we shall speak to him face to face. Here we can speak of Jesus and worship him, there we will be able to hug him and feel his arm thrown over our shoulders as we walk and talk together. Here we have relationships with people that are wonderful, yet tainted with our selfishness and pride, there we shall worship and walk side by side in love with no other agenda and no ulterior motive. It will be a place of no evil, no pain, the only tears will be those of joy and we will never have to say goodbye to anyone ever again. 

The beauty of that is astounding – it is beyond imagining. In fact the Bible even says that too –

“No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

This is why we should focus on heaven. For here not only do pleasures here not satisfy and never will, but here we have pain and death and sorrow. Here, life is hard, it’s a struggle, and there are times where we face confusion and doubt and difficulty. Sadly many times even Christianity has gotten this wrong – we spend our time trying to make life less painful and spend all our focus here despairing over situations never taking time to look up and say, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death you are with me. The writers of the New Testament had a different view of suffering all together – In Romans 8 it reads

“We also rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us” Rom 8:3-5

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Rom 8:18

Saint Theresa said that the most horrible, suffering-filled life on Earth, looked at from Heaven will seem no more than a night in an inconvenient hotel.

This is not in any way to minimise the pain and struggles we face on a day to day basis. What it does do is give us a meaning and a purpose in them – firstly that we know that the suffering will not last forever, that there is a time in this world or the next when it will end. I have a dear friend, who is in some senses my god mother, named Penny – she has been in a wheelchair for all 60 years of her life, and has undergone many painful surgeries and lives with constant pain. She is also one of the strongest Christians I know, and when speaking to her about healing she says she believes that God heals… if not during her life here then definitely in heaven when she can’t wait to dance with Jesus.

Secondly, suffering is a part of the process to prepare us for heaven. One of the key verses that came up in this topic was Phil 1:21

“For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”

What Paul is basically saying is that living is suffering. It’s taking up your cross daily and struggling along. Jesus doesn’t make it any easier – he told his disciples “In this world you will have trouble” but then goes on to say, but I have overcome the world. Don’t worry… you will have trouble now – but you have a glorious hope that one day… there will be no more. This world has been defeated – the war is won, we are simply seeing out the final battles.

Some people believe that to think about Heaven and set our minds there is escapism, but only if Heaven is a lie would it be that – a pregnant mother dreaming about the life of her child once he’s born is not practising escapism, she planning for a reality. A child dreaming of his holiday after school, or an accountant dreaming of his evening at home with his family after work are planning for real and tangible things. Heaven is as real and tangible as that – and so we should be dreaming and planning and thinking of it.

The Bible tells us to set our mind on things above, not on earthly things – it tells us to meditate on all that is good and true and lovely and pure and righteous. We do not long for Heaven because we haven’t set our minds there – we haven’t allowed ourselves to plan and dream and imagine a life of glory with our Jesus. 

Are you desperate for heaven? No? May I suggest it’s because you have no living hope because you imagine heaven to be far less interesting than the earthly vacation you have your eyes on, or the man you would like to marry. Your imagination in regard to the vacation or the man is fully fleshed out. You’ve already picked out the destination for the vacation and the tuxedo for the man but your imagination of heaven might be flat, lifeless and boring.

Ted Dekker – and I see my friends roll their eyes when I say his name because he is my all time favourite author… has written a book called the slumber of Christianity – his only non-fiction book to date, where he talks of the power of focusing on heaven. He encourages the use of our imaginations and meditations to form in our minds what we long for in heaven. Without vision, people perish – and vision is at its base imagination. It’s envisioning, or imagining an outcome.

I pray that you will leave here encouraged and with a hope that cannot be taken away from you. I pray that you will throw off the sin that so easily entangles and you’ll fix your eyes on an unconventional, relentless pursuit of beauty, truth and love in that place where we will come face-to-face with our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

I pray that you will not shun the gifts the Creator has showered on you, but that you’ll embrace them as the first-fruits of all that is to come. And that you’ll let these gifts awaken your desire for the day when the pleasures will flood us like unstoppable waves crashing on the shore.

And I pray that you will learn to set your mind firmly on things above. That you will know the truth of heaven the truth that this life will quickly pass and the staggering reality of the life to come will be upon us. The truth that you were created for that life more than for this life… and that thinking on these things will change everything.