Do you ever think about what heaven is like?
I suspect most of us do, at least once in a while.
After all, we all know someone who’s there, or at least we hope they are.
And I assume we all hope to go there ourselves one day. So it’s natural that we’d wonder just what
heaven is actually like.
But of course, wondering what heaven is like assumes that
there actually is a heaven. And of course as Christians, that is what we
believe. But everyone does not believe
that. You’ll hear all kinds of beliefs about reincarnation and higher
planes of consciousness and so forth. And there are some who say that
nothing happens when we die. We just
die, and that’s it.
That seems to be what the Sadducees thought. And so
they come to Jesus with a question.
They’re trying to trick Jesus, to trap him, to make him look stupid for
saying that the dead are raised.
And we’ll get to that in a minute, but it brings us
something that seems odd to me. Why was it so important to the Sadducees
to prove that there is no resurrection of the dead? What difference did
it make to them? Was it just the fact
that they believed it was a wrong teaching, and they wanted people to know
better? Did they think it was an affront to God to believe something that
was not true? Did they think it would
lead to other wrong beliefs, or to bad behavior?
I don’t know the answer, I’m just curious about it. I
mean, if someone wanted to believe the dead were raised, so what? They
might think it was not true, but who was it hurting? Why was this issue so important to them that
they needed to confront Jesus with it?
Well, for whatever reason, it was. And so they come
to Jesus with a question. It’s kind of a complicated question, but it’s
one that would’ve made sense to people at the time. It fit in perfectly
with Jewish law, and the Sadducees were very big on Jewish law. What they said about the law was exactly
right.
At that time, it was considered a really bad thing to let
someone’s line of succession die out. And so the law said that if a man
died and left a wife but no children, the man’s brother should marry the widow
and have children for him. That may seem a little strange to us now, but
it would’ve made perfect sense to the people listening to this conversation
between the Sadducees and Jesus.
And so the Sadducees come up with this scenario. It
seems far-fetched, and it would’ve seemed far-fetched then, too, but it still
would’ve seemed like a logical question. What if a guy dies childless,
and his brother marries his widow, and he dies childless, too, and then another
brother marries his widow, and they still don’t have any children, and this
happens seven times. After they’re all dead, whose wife is this woman
going to be in heaven?
And this is where the written word kind of fails us,
because I really wonder what the expression was on Jesus’ face when he heard
that. I mean, was he just shaking his head at them? Was he thinking, “Good grief, don’t you
people have anything better to do than to come up with questions like
that?” Was he upset with them? Was
he angry that they were trying to trap him with this question? I mean, the religious authorities were trying
to trick Jesus and trap him all the time. I’d think after a while, he
probably got really tired of having to deal with that.
But what I really think is that Jesus probably just shook
his head kind of sadly at how ignorant these people were and how little they
understood the things they were talking about. Because that’s his answer,
really--you people just don’t understand.
You don’t understand the first thing about heaven and what it’s
like. The only reason you think this is
a good question is because you’re thinking in human terms.
What the Sadducees were doing
was taking the laws and rules that God made for humans on earth and assuming
that those same laws and rules are going to apply in heaven. And Jesus
says, no. That’s not how it works. The laws and rules God made for humans on
earth are not the same as the laws and rules that apply in heaven. The reason why not is that humans are not
going to be the same in heaven as they are on earth. If you had any idea
about heaven, or about what people are going to be like when they go there,
you’d know how ridiculous this question really is.
But you know, we really should not be too hard on the
Sadducees. Remember, I asked you at the start of this message if you ever
think about what heaven is like. If you do, I suspect you think of it in
human terms. And so do I.
It’s understandable. It’s about the only thing we can
do, really. After all, you and I are human. Human terms are the only terms we can
understand. The only way we can try to visualize heaven, the only way we
can have it make any sense to us, is if we think of it in human terms.
And so we think of a place where we can rest. We think
of it as a place where we’re at peace, with nothing to worry about, no
concerns, nothing to bother us. We think of it as a place where we’ll be
with our loved ones again. Some people
think of it as a place where they’ll be reunited with their favorite pets,
too. Some people think of it as a place where we’ll be able to do all the
things we enjoy. Some people think of it
as a place where we can eat all we want and not gain weight. And on and
on and on.
And it’s not necessarily wrong to think of heaven that
way. Again, things like that are about the only way we can think of
heaven and have it make any sense to us. But when we think about heaven
that way, we should keep one thing in the back of our minds. The chances are that, when we get to heaven, we’ll
find out that everything we ever thought about heaven while we were on earth is
wrong.
Because, in thinking about
heaven, we’re really not that different from the Sadducees. I mean, we’re
different in that they believed there is no resurrection of the dead and we
believe that there certainly is. But as far as really understanding
heaven, you and I really have no clue whatsoever.
There are a lot of theories about why God does not let us
know what heaven is really like while we’re on earth. Some people say
that heaven is simply beyond our understanding, that even if God told us we’d
never understand it. Some people say that if we really understood heaven
and how incredible it is, it would make our lives on earth unbearable to
us. We’d hate being here because we’d want so much to be there. And there are lots of other theories, too.
I obviously don’t know the answer. But what I think is that at least part of the
reason God does not let us fully understand heaven is because that’s not where
God wants our focus to be. Not right now, anyway. It’s okay to want to go to heaven when the
time comes, but for right now, I think God wants our focus to be on our lives
here on earth. God wants us to do the things Jesus told us to do. Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and
strength. Love our neighbors as
ourselves. Love our enemies. Pray for those who persecute us. Go and
make disciples of all nations. Serve God
and be faithful to God.
Those are the things God wants us to focus on while we’re
on earth. God wants us to do those things as well as we possibly
can. We won’t do them perfectly, because
while we’re on earth perfection is not something we’re capable of. But we
should not use that as an excuse, either.
We need to do all of those things as well as we possibly can. And when we do mess up, we need to go to God,
ask for forgiveness, and try again to do all of those things as well as we
possibly can.
We really don’t understand heaven any better than the
Sadducees did. But we do know one thing they did not know, and it’s a
pretty big one. We know that the resurrection is real. We know that heaven exists. We know that, by our faith in Jesus Christ as
the Savior, and by God’s incredible love and grace and mercy, we will go there
when our time comes.
It’s okay to wonder what heaven is like. But for now,
let’s focus on being faithful to God while we’re on earth. If we do that,
we’ll get to find out what heaven is like when the time is right.
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