Heaven

Last night on Nightline there was a segment on "Heaven".  They set up the segment to make us think there was some weird, crazy, new cultish idea out there concerning the afterlife.  Then the camera zoomed in on N.T. Wright, who went on to give a delightful, Biblical, and historically Christian perspective of heaven.  Wright shot down the Left Behind, escapist perspective...and emphasized that Biblical Christianity has always been about re-creation...about God restoring his reign (kingdom) here on earth.  Amen brother Wright...

Today my wife and I wondered why 12 years of Christian schooling doesn't get this point across.  She is a pure product of Christian education...grade school, high school, and college.  Why had she never heard this before?  Why is heaven portrayed as somewhere out there...some other place?  Why, at funerals, do we say "They're in a better place..."?  Is that true?  Today she wondered if she just didn't pay attention...maybe it was presented the way Wright discussed...and she just didn't listen.  We agreed that this probably wasn't the case...

I grew up thinking this way...but I grew up listening to Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swagart on TV...It wasn't until I started reading...exploring...C.S. Lewis, Karl Barth, N.T. Wright....that my eyes were opened to the truth.  And today my wife expressed the same feeling I once did...sweet relief.  Things are more meaningful...the work we do, the relationships we enter into, actually caring for the created world.  Everything is infused with meaning...God is not abandoning this world, he is at work restoring it...reconciling it.  Death is not a ticket to a better place...it is an intrusion, a curse, not the way it's supposed to be.  A proper view of heaven gives us a proper perspective of this life...of this world...and how much God wants us to be what we 

were created to be.  We are finally allowed to grieve the brokenness...we are allowed to embrace the sorrow...only because we have hope things are being undone..."put to rights" as Wright would say.  That in the resurrection of Jesus Christ the new creation emerged from the darkness of the tomb...and this new creation - a restored creation - is where we belong.