Heaven

Exploration of the open sea grew and flourished rapidly after Columbus’s discovery of America in the late fifteenth century. There were so many new regions of the world waiting to be explored and discovered. Innate curiosity along with the opportunity for adventure and economic gain were the principle driving forces behind these bold pioneers of the sea, However, their voyages were taken at great cost and with great risk. Many men died in these quests and explorations.

The adventurers and explorers who had set sail and discovered new routes, returning safely, possessed knowledge that was of great value. These men had learned the secrets of safe passages to new worlds. They kept detailed records in a small book called a “rutter,” which held all the secrets of a particular route to a specific destination and was of great importance to those who might make future voyages.

Obviously, a rutter held such great value because it recounted someone’s long journey, someone who had braved an unknown distance and returned as a witness to others. The rutter offered greater certainty for those who would travel in the future. With rutter in hand a sailor had confidence the same voyage could be retraced with a measure of safety.

The idea of a rutter is important when we consider the journey we will take at death. In one sense, when we depart this life, we too will be traveling to a distant, mysterious place. We too need a rutter, we need a guide who has experienced this journey and returned to share knowledge with us.

Jesus has revealed all that we need to know about death and the afterlife. It is so important to know that God became a man, and, most significantly, suffered a human life and death in its fulness, just as each of us will, and He came back to share with us what to expect and what awaits us.

In May 2020, two months after the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tim Keller was diagnosed with a particularly invasive and lethal form of cancer. The following year, in an essay for The Atlantic titled “Growing My Faith in the Face of Death,” he gave powerful voice to his sadness—and his unshakable hope.

Keller wrote, “[My wife] Kathy and I cried a lot together last night. Sometimes the reality of the shortness of what we have left just overwhelms us.” But then nstead of trying to “make a heaven out of this earth”—whether through things like vacations (in Kathy’s case) or ministry productivity (in Tim’s)—they were coming to apprehend a surprising truth: When you stop trying to manufacture heaven, it actually enhances earthly joys:

The joys of the earth are more poignant than they used to be… There’s a whole lot of things [Kathy and I] never really enjoyed that much. But the more we make heaven into the real heaven, the more this world becomes something we are actually enjoying for its own sake—instead of trying to make it give us more than it really can. So oddly enough . . . we’ve never been happier. We’ve never enjoyed our days more. We’ve never enjoyed hugs more. We’ve never enjoyed food more. We’ve never enjoyed walks more. We’ve never enjoyed the actual things we see, touch, taste, hear, and smell more. Why? What’s the matter with us? And the answer is, we got our hearts off those things and so, weirdly enough, we enjoy them more.

Humans have color vision because our eyes contain three types of cone cells. One cone helps us see blue, another to see green, and the third to see red. This is called trichromatic vision. The brain combines signals from these three types of cones to perceive a wide range of colors, allowing humans to distinguish millions of different colors from periwinkle to chartreuse.

There is, however, a rare breed living among us called tetrachro¬mats. They possess a fourth cone, allowing them to see a hundred mil¬lion colors that are invisible to the rest of us. For every color a trichromat sees, a tetrachromat perceives a hundred hues!

I can't help but wonder if we'll get a fifth cone in heaven, enabling us to perceive a billion colors. Or perhaps a sixth, seventh, or hun¬dredth cone! By earthly standards, we'll have extrasensory perception. Everything will smell better, taste better, sound better, feel better, and look better. With our newly glorified senses, we'll hear angel octaves.

Remember when Elisha was surrounded by the Aramean army? He said to his very confused assistant, "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." Elisha prayed that the Lord would open his servant's eyes, and it's almost like God created an extra cone. "He looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha."

Possible Preaching Angle: If our spiritual eyes were opened, what would we see? We'd see what's really happening! We'd see guardian angels, as the scriptures describe them ministering to those who will inherit salvation (Heb. 1:14). We'd discern the manifest presence of God, perhaps like Moses who encountered God's glory on the mountain or Isaiah in God’s throne room (Exod. 33:18-23; Isa. 6:1-7). We'd perceive powers and principalities, those unseen forces at work in the world, as Paul warns us about (Eph. 6:12).

Many of us go to extraordinary lengths to avoid learning the endings of films we haven't watched or books we haven't read. We get upset with friends who slip up and spill the surprise ending.

But a study from two researchers at the University of California, San Diego suggests that spoilers don't spoil stories. Instead, contrary to popular wisdom, they might even enhance our enjoyment of a story. The study ran experiments based on 12 short stories. The researchers found that the study participants preferred the "spoiled" versions of suspenseful stories. For example, in one case, participants were told before reading the story that a condemned man's daring escape is all just a fantasy before the noose snaps around his neck. That spoiler alert helped them enjoy the story even more.

Researchers have identified several reasons some of us like to find out what happens in a story before they’ve finished.

In an article for The Washington Post Olga Mecking says some people are happier knowing how the story ends. “After I became a mother, I developed a much lower tolerance for stress and tension. One way I deal with this is to embrace spoilers. If the action on the page or screen is too suspenseful, I go online to look up what happens next and release some of that tension.”

Researchers also explored tension in the 2011 study “Story Spoilers Don’t Spoil Stories.” When study participants were told the outcome of the short story they were about to read, they reported being more satisfied with the overall experience compared with when they read a story unspoiled.

When so much in the world feels uncertain, knowing how a film or a book will end can give audiences a sense of peace and a feeling of control. We don't know what will happen in real life, but at least we can find out what happens in this story.

Possible Preaching Angles:

As followers of Christ, the Bible has many "spoiler alerts" about how the story of our lives or the world will end. Does this diminish our enjoyment of the story? No, the Bible's spoiler alerts can help us "focus on a deeper understanding of the story" and give us peace inside of worry.

In the classic sports film, Heaven Can Wait, actor Warren Beatty plays a man named Joe Pendleton. He was the star quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams and on the verge of leading his team to the Super Bowl when he is struck by a truck while riding his bike. An overzealous angel prematurely removes him from his body, assuming that he was about to die.

When he arrives in heaven, Joe refuses to believe that his time is up. So, he pleads his case that he needs more time on earth. He successfully argues his point with the overzealous angel’s supervisor, but there’s a problem—he can’t go back into his original body because it’s been cremated. So, they have to find another dead body for him to enter. Lo and behold, there’s this multimillionaire who’s just died, murdered by an unfaithful wife.

Joe comes back to life in the multi-millionaire’s body. Then he buys the Rams so that he can become their starting quarterback and lead them to the Super Bowl. The problem is that his wife still wants him dead. Right before the Super Bowl, he’s shot. The Rams are forced to start the backup quarterback, but during the game the backup takes a brutal hit, and what happens? He dies. What happens after that? Right again. The angel’s supervisor sends Joe into the backup quarterback’s body, and he leads the Rams to Super Bowl victory.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what this story has to do with hope of heaven? The message of the movie is that heaven can wait because it can’t possibly be better than getting what we want right now. Attaining a lifelong dream—that’s heaven! But the truth is when I do get what I want, I find out that there’s something else I want that’s even better.

By the time they have turned eighteen, most Americans will have moved at least twice. Most thirty-year-olds will have moved six times. By the end of our lives, most of us will have pushed that number up to eleven. This highly mobile way of life is mirrored in our career habits as well.

The average American worker holds ten different jobs before the age of forty, and this job transience is only expected to increase in the years ahead. Add to these the slew of life changes such as college or vocational training, marriage, and having children, and it becomes clear how many different phases our lives actually have. For all of us there is only one thing that remains the same—the fact that nothing does.

In an interview with Danny Devito, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger despairs at the reality of death and wonders who’s to blame. When someone asked him what happens when we die, he said (curse words deleted):

Nothing. You’re 6 feet under. Anyone that tells you something else is a [...] liar. We don’t know what happens with the soul and all this spiritual stuff that I’m not an expert in, but I know that the body as we see each other now, we will never see each other again like that … When people talk about, 'I will see them again in heaven,' it sounds so good, but the reality is that we won’t see each other again after we’re gone. That’s the sad part. I know people feel comfortable with death, but I don’t. Because I will [...] miss [...] everything.

Schwarzenegger considers what that he’ll miss when he dies: “to have fun and to go to the gym and to pump up, to ride my bike on the beach, to travel around, to see interesting things all over the world.”

DEVITO: “Life! It’s the best!”

Schwarzenegger then wonders who’s to blame.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I tell you, there’s someone that mixed up this whole thing. Think about it. Who can we blame?

DEVITO: You mean that we don’t live forever?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Yeah. That we have to die.

DEVITO: That’s tough, man.

SCHWARZENEGGER: I don’t know what the deal is, but in any case, it’s a reality, and it truly [ticks] me off.

DEVITO: You don’t want to die.

SCHWARZENEGGER: No. What the […]? What kind of deal is that?

In June 2022, 97-year-old William Kellerman finally got the medal the army failed to give him 80 years earlier. Mr. Kellerman was 18 years old when he was drafted late in 1943. On June 6, 1944, he and thousands of other soldiers huddled on war ships as the first wave of Allied troops launched themselves into the shores of Normandy. Five days later, it was his turn to dodge German fire while running up Utah Beach.

German troops captured Kellerman. They moved him to a building that held about 80 prisoners of war. One night, Kellerman escaped. After a French family gave him new clothes, he walked and biked nearly 600 miles, picking up food where he could from French farmers, Army records show. Back home, his mother and sister feared the worst. They had received a hand-delivered letter from the U.S. Army telling them he was listed as missing as of July 22, 1944.

But instead of sending him home, his captain put him back into combat. He was part of the force that took Chames, France, and in April 1945 was hit by sniper fire in the hand and the leg. Mr. Kellerman was being treated for his wounds in an Army hospital when the war officially ended. He served until 1946, the Army said.

But despite all his incredible adventures, Kellerman never got recognized by the army—until recently. In June 2022 he received the Prisoner of War Medal and the Purple Heart long denied him. An Army spokesman said, “The Army is conducting this ceremony now to correct this unfortunate oversight.”

For Mr. Kellerman, the late-in-life recognition is an unexpected gift. “I feel like I’m coming out of the shadows and into the sunlight,” he said.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Justice; Hope; Heaven; Reward —Sometimes our good deeds are not recognized for a long time, or even in this life, but God will reward our faithfulness.

Admiral William H. McRaven writes about what he learned during Navy SEAL training that has helped him and could help anyone live a better life. Hope. He said:

Hope is the most powerful force in the universe. With hope you can inspire nations to greatness. With hope you can raise up the downtrodden. With hope you can ease the pain of unbearable loss. Sometimes all it takes is one person to make a difference.

We will all find ourselves neck dep in mud someday. That is the time to sing loudly, to smile broadly, to lift up those around you and give them hope that tomorrow will be a better day.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Hope truly is a powerful force and yet “living hope” goes beyond what is satisfying in life because it is based on the resurrection of Jesus. Our hope is living because Jesus is alive.

In the summer of 2023, Heather Beville felt something she hadn’t in a long time: a hug from her sister Jessica, who died at age 30 from cancer. In a dream, “I hugged her and I could feel her, even though I knew in my logic that she was dead.”

Like fellow Christians, Beville is sure that death is not the end. But she’s also among a significant number who say they have continued to experience visits from deceased loved ones here on earth.

In a recent Pew Research Center survey, 42 percent of self-identified evangelicals said they had been visited by a loved one who had passed away. Rates were even higher among Catholics and Black Protestants, two-thirds of whom reported such experiences.

Interactions with the dead fall into a precarious supernatural space. Staunch secularists will say they’re impossible and must be made up. Bible-believing Christians may be wary of the spiritual implications of calling on ghosts from beyond. Yet more than half of Americans believe a dead family member has come to them in a dream or some other form.

Researchers say most people who report “after-death communications” find the interactions to be comforting, not haunting or scary. Professor Julie Exline says, “They’re often very valuable for people. They give them hope that their loved one is still there and still connected to them. These experiences help people, even if they don’t know what to make of them.”

There are several factors that come into play for a person to turn to supernatural explanations for what they’ve experienced. Prior belief in God, angels, spirits, or ghosts, combined with a belief that these beings actually do communicate with people in the world is one condition. Another factor is the relationship between a person and their loved one—“the need for relational closure” amid prolonged grief. And women are more likely to report the phenomena.

Possible Preaching Angle:

The spiritual realm described in Scripture comes with strong warnings. The text repeatedly advises against calling on spirits outside of God himself, with several Old Testament verses specifically addressing interactions with the dead (“necromancy” in some translations). Deuteronomy 18, for example, decries anyone who “is a medium or spiritist or who consults with the dead” as “detestable to the Lord” (vv. 11, 12).

Pastors can attest that grieving Christian spouses occasionally believe they have seen shadows or objects in the home moving after the death of a loved one. We can rest on the absolute truth of God’s Word that “absent from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). At death, believers are immediately in the presence of the Lord and not wandering the earth (Phil. 1:23).

Is there really an afterlife? While most people think humans will never be able to prove what happens after death, half of adults still believe their spirit lives on—somewhere.

The new survey of over 1,000 people in the United Kingdom, finds 50% of respondents believe in an afterlife. Of this group, 60% believe everyone experiences the same thing when they die—regardless of their individual beliefs. However, two in three believe scientists will never be able to tell us what really happens when someone passes.

Regardless of whether people think they’re going to heaven (55%) or worry their life choices could end up sending them to hell (58%), the poll finds 68% of all respondents have no fear of what comes next. Overall, one in four think people go to heaven or hell, 16% believe they’ll exist in a “spiritual realm,” and 16% believe in reincarnation.

No matter what happens after death, respondents are confident it’ll actually be an improvement over their current life. The poll finds adults think heaven provides people with a chance to recapture the things they’ve lost throughout their life.

The vast majority (86%) think the afterlife involves a sense of peace and 66% describe it as a place of happiness. Three in five adults believe there will be no more suffering when they die.

However, respondents think there are a few conditions people need to follow in order to reach this peaceful realm. Over four in five people (84%) say you have to live a good life and be a generally good person to reach heaven. One in three claim you have to place your faith in a higher power to reach the afterlife and one in five say it requires you to confess all your sins.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This survey was taken in mid-life when old age and illness are seen as far away. When one gets closer to the end, it is likely many of them will change their opinion, or fall deeper into denial with the help of Satan who wants to soothe them with lies.

A tourist in Las Vegas hit the jackpot on a slot machine, but he was never informed due to a malfunction in the machine, according to gaming officials. Now after an exhaustive search, the Nevada Gaming Control Board says they have identified the winner of the nearly $230,000 prize.

A man, later identified by officials as Robert Taylor, played a slot machine at Treasure Island Hotel and Casino. Due to a communications error, according to gaming officials, the slot machine malfunctioned and didn't notify Taylor or casino personnel that he was a winner. By the time the error was noticed, casino personnel were unable to identify the man, who was from out of state. The gaming board took on an exhaustive search to make sure the man would be awarded his prize.

To identify the winner, gaming officials combed through hours of surveillance videos from several casinos, interviewed witnesses, sifted through electronic purchase records, and even analyzed ride share data provided by the Nevada Transportation Authority and a rideshare company. The jackpot winner was determined to be Taylor, a tourist from Arizona.

Possible Preaching Angle:

We too are the inheritors of a great wealth, the Kingdom of God, but we go through life living unaware. How would it change the way we live today if we truly understand the vast riches of tomorrow?

In the book The Faith of Elvis, Billy Stanley, half-brother of Elvis, shares poignantly of the ups and downs of Elvis’ walk with the Jesus. On a more humorous side he shared this encounter between Elvis and Sammy Davis Jr.:

It was a kind of a funny thing, and also serious in a way, but one time in Las Vegas, he was talking to Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy noticed Elvis wearing both a Star of David and a cross necklace—two things that don’t normally go together because they represent two distinct religions: Judaism and Christianity.

Sammy said, “Elvis, isn’t that kind of a contradiction?”

Elvis looked at him and said, “I don’t want to miss heaven on a technicality.”

Why do people believe they have seen ghosts? Research suggests that the brain may summon spirits as a means of coping with trauma, especially the pain of losing a loved one. Just as most amputees report what’s known as “phantom limb,” the feeling that their detached appendage is still there, surviving spouses frequently report seeing or sensing their departed partner.

One 1971 survey in the British Medical Journal found that close to half the widows in Wales and England had seen their partners postmortem. These vivid encounters, which psychologists call “after-death communication,” have long been among the most common kinds of paranormal experience, affecting skeptics and believers alike.

Experts think that such specters help us deal with painful or confusing events. A 2011 analysis published in the journal Death Studies looked at hundreds of incidents of supposed interaction with the deceased. The paper concluded that some occurrences provided “instantaneous relief from painful grief symptoms,” while others strengthened preexisting religious views.

There’s also evidence that sightings have other mental benefits. In a 1995 survey, 91 percent of participants said their encounter had at least one upside, such as a sense of connection to others.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Afterlife; Heaven – Pastors can attest that grieving Christian spouses occasionally believe they have seen shadows or objects in the home moving after the death of a loved one. We can rest on the absolute truth of God’s Word that “absent from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). At death, believers are immediately in the presence of the Lord and not wandering the earth (Phil. 1:23).

For years, Google Maps has offered Street View. Street View stitches together panoramic camera images to recreate a digital facsimile of the real world that you can explore online. Some people are discovering that if they scroll through the platform long enough and use a time travel feature, they just might find the image of a late loved one captured by one of Google’s cameras. Seemingly saved in Google Maps forever.

One post from UK-based writer Sherri Turner has already racked up tens of thousands of “Likes” on Twitter. She wrote, “I look(ed) at my mum’s old house on Google maps street view, the house where I grew up. It says ‘Image captured May 2009.’ There is a light on in her bedroom. It is still her house, she is still alive, I am still visiting every few months on the train.”

Google says the digital recreation of the physical world is powered by millions of cameras that capture multiple angles. While helping people remember dead family members isn’t really the intended purpose of Google Maps, a spokesperson said it was “heartwarming” that people were using the platform in this way.

But there’s more to the story than viral content. The images are a reminder that many people who show up in Street View don’t know their pictures are being taken, and the deceased have no say in whether or not their image remains on the service.

Google says it has systems in place for blurring out personally identifying information from passersby and license plates in the photos it takes. But clearly, some people can still be identified if a family member knows what they’re looking for. The enduring trend of finding lost loved ones inevitably serves as a reminder that Google plays a major role in documenting our daily lives over time.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Family; Resurrection; Second Coming of Christ – People find it comforting that they can see the image of loved ones preserved “forever” digitally. However, believers know that God has preserved not a picture but the souls of their departed loved ones and a great reunion is coming (1 Thess. 4:13-18). 2) Camera; Computers; Surveillance - Some people find these online images comforting, and some find them creepy. But it is a reminder that we can’t expect privacy any longer.

People can’t say goodbye anymore,” writes the poet Les Murray. “They say last hellos.”

In his book A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken tells the story of his last meeting with C. S. Lewis, who had become a friend. The two men ate lunch together, and when they had finished, Lewis said, “At all events, we’ll certainly meet again, here—or there.” Then he added: “I shan’t say goodbye. We’ll meet again.” And with that, they shook hands and parted ways. From across the street, above the din of traffic, Lewis shouted, “Besides, Christians never say goodbye!”

Avoiding goodbye when we have to move on and face the prospect of never seeing each other again in this life denies the importance of our bodily life together. Brushing over “farewell” denies that the pain of separation is real—that no matter how many texts or phone calls or Facebook updates we share, we won’t be available for each other in the same way anymore.

The word “goodbye” is actually a contraction of “God be with you.” Saying goodbye is important, in the end, because it’s one way of reminding each other that we are God’s bodily creatures. We want him to watch over us and keep our love for one another alive, right now, even before the day of our eventual reunion.

Sandra McCracken writes in an article in CT magazine:

I woke up before the sun on a recent morning, just home from some overseas travel. The discomfort of jet lag is one of my favorite embodied metaphors of our spiritual reality. We live in liminal space. We are pulled between two time zones. On the one hand, by faith we are held secure in the love of God. We have received full redemption. On the other hand, though we have been made secure in Christ, we continue to experience uncertainty. We are sojourners, not yet home.

Jet lag is oddly comforting for me because it reminds me that much conflict in life takes time to resolve; there’s no way around it. Our bodies—and our hearts—require patience as they acclimate to new surroundings. In seasons of doubt or slow change, I come back to the truth … that above my uncertainty, I am secure.

Beatrice Fediuk decided to write a resumé for heaven as her obituary. When she finally passed at age 94, the Winnipeg Free Press printed the resumé in its entirety. It starts: "Dear Lord, please accept my application for Eternal Life. My resumé is as follows." She divided her obituary into sections—like a real resumé—objectives, references, training, experience, volunteer work, and hobbies.

Beatrice gave a summary of her life history, saying she was born on October 22, 1927, to “loving parents Eugenie and Alfred. ... I have left my daughter Michelle, her husband Perry, my granddaughter Kali, and many nieces and nephews on earth, as there are no openings for them in Heaven just yet."

She shared her memories, saying: "Lord, you know that (as a teacher) I never had any 'teacher's pets.’ Rather, I put my heart into teaching those with learning challenges, or difficult family situations. It was here that I feel I did my best work. … I also continued volunteer work, knitting scarves for underprivileged children.”

Summing up her CV, she added: "Lord, I hope that you will find that I have met my Objectives and deserve a place in Your heavenly home. You know where to find me to further discuss my qualifications."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, this is how many good people plan to arrive in heaven—on the basis of good works and good intentions. But as Scripture clearly says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that American Protestants believe that:

46% Faith in God alone is needed to get into heaven

52% Both good deeds and faith in God are needed to get into heaven

46% The Bible provides all the religious guidance that Christians need

52% In addition to the Bible, Christians need guidance from church teachings and traditions