SERMON: Where Do We End Up?

 

Before my own sermon, a story by a preacher from one hundred years ago... The Roll with a Strange Name

A Parable of Safed the Sage

By the Rev. Eleazer E. Barton, 1921

There came unto our home, our Little Grandson. And be besought his Grandmother, even Keturah, that she would give unto him a Roll. And she would have understood him plainly, but he said that he wanted a Pyonder Roll.

Now Keturah can make Pocket-book Rolls, and Parker House Rolls, and Hot Biscuits, and if there be any kind of Rolls that are good, them also can she make. And when she serveth them with Golden Butter and Maple Syrup or Honey or Preserves, then would she cause the mouth of a Graven Image to water. But she did not know about any Pyonder Roll.

And the little lad said, I want the Roll that’s called a Pyonder.

Then did a Great White Light begin to dawn upon the mind of Keturah, and she said, Tell me the rest of it, my dear.

And he said:

When the Trumpet of the Lord shall sound and Time shall be no more,

And the Roll is called a Pyonder I'll be there.

And she gave unto him a Roll, and he was there.

Now I bethought myself of the Strange Mental pictures which our Grown-up words bring unto the mind of children. And I considered that our Heavenly Father knoweth that our minds also are but the minds of Little Children, and all our Mental Pictures of Celestial Things are limited, and that much which we learn of Divine Truth is even as the Pyonder Roll.

And I am thankful that we have our Pyonder Rolls, even our Daily Bread, and that the way of essential righteousness is so plain that a little child may learn it. And it is my earnest hope that when the Roll is called Up Yonder, I'll be there.

Where Do We End Up?

(November ADVENTures)

10:30 am, Sun, Nov 13, 2022 - J G White / FBCA

(Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 21:5-19)

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth. So proclaimed a Jewish prophet, long ago.

It must have been twenty-five years ago, in Parrsboro, that I attended a Jehovah’s Witness funeral for the first time in my life. I still remember the preacher, that day at Smith’s Funeral Home, making the point that the deceased had not been hoping to get to heaven, but to the New Earth.

I find it a bit embarrassing that I had to go to a service from that sect to hear that biblical teaching made public. The new heavens and new earth image of Isaiah 65 is picked up more than once in scripture, including in our finale, Revelation 21 and 22. We just sang it in a hymn.

This is no strange doctrine, claimed only by cults and religious groups on the fringe. It is at the centre of Christian teaching. Let me quote from our Basis of Union. You know the Basis of Union? In 1905 and 1906 two Baptist groups in Atlantic Canada united together. We spelled out the doctrines we could agree upon in our Basis of Union. I’ll read three paragraphs, on Death, on Resurrection, and the General Judgment.

Death — At death our bodies return to dust, our souls to God who gave them. The righteous being then perfected in happiness are received to dwell with God, awaiting the full redemption of their bodies. The wicked are cast into Hades reserved unto the judgement of the great day.

Resurrection — There will be a general resurrection of the bodies of the just and of the unjust; the righteous in the likeness of Christ, but the wicked to shame and everlasting contempt.

General Judgement — There will be a judgement of quick and dead, of the just and unjust, on the principles of righteousness, by the Lord Jesus Christ, at His second coming. The wicked will be condemned to eternal punishment, and the righteous received into fullness of eternal life and joy.

Where do we end up after death, thanks to the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ? Eventually, somehow, in what gets called the New Earth, with the New Heavens overlapping it.

It is a picture that is painted for our imaginations in scripture. It is a story, a vision. I think it is explained this way for humans of every generation, to point to whatever the experience will be. It is surely beyond words, and doctrines, and stories. Remember what we read in the great love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13: 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 12 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face.

When it comes to Christian doctrines, and orthodoxy, I want to be generous. So I think all the hopes and dreams people have of going to Heaven are pretty close to the New Heavens and Earth. We so often imagine heaven being like life here, but perfect.

Walk with me through those old prophecies of Isaiah 65 and see how the mysterious future is imagined in practical, earthly ways people can understand. Five things.

There will be No sorrow or distress. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress. I think, every day, I talk with someone who has reason to weep or be distressed. An older person lives with pain every day; a young person is in hospital with a brain bleed; someone is stressed out at their job; someone else is no longer on speaking terms with a family member. Some people call it ‘hell on earth.’ How we want to cling to a vision of heaven on earth, someday, somehow!

Revelation 21 declares that God will wipe away all tears and sadness, and things like death and loss and pain will be over and gone. Hard to imagine: wonderful to hope!

Two: there will be No short life. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old person who does not live out a lifetime, for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. Folks in the Monday Bible Study Group (we have got to come up with a better name!) we have mentioned the long life spans of people in Genesis. Adam 930 years, Methuselah 969 y, Noah 950y. I cannot explain this.

In a lovely collection called, ‘Children’s Letters to God,’ one child wrote:  GOD,

I WOULD LIKE TO LIVE 900 YEARS LIKE THE GUY IN THE BIBLE.  LOVE, CHRIS

Maybe, it is not the living forever and ever that we want; we just don’t want to die and have others die. Such is the hope and the promise of the afterlife. Isaiah 65 points in that direction, a bit; Revelation 21 arrives.

Last week we heard more than once a quotation from Lawrence Binyon’s 1914 poem, ‘For the Fallen.’

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

Three: No labour in vain. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat...

Here, again, in Isaiah’s vision, is a very earthly, practical expression of hope and promise. We might claim the words in an expansive way. No good work will not be worth doing. No child-rearing will end with disappointment or disrespect or disaster. No community will decay or falter or become corrupt.

Though we may not literally expect to raise children in the afterlife, of have a job like preaching or construction or accounting, the satisfaction of accomplishing good work is a way of imagining the eternal future with the eternal One. A certain Rev. Dr. friend always wanted this poem read at his funeral: L’Envoi, by Rudyard Kipling, 1896. In part, it says:

  When Earth’s last picture is painted,

and the tubes are twisted and dried

When the oldest colors have faded,

and the youngest critic has died,

We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—

lie down for an aeon or two,

’Till the Master of All Good Workmen

shall set us to work anew!

 

And those that were good will be happy:

they shall sit in a golden chair;

They shall splash at a ten-league canvas

with brushes of comet’s hair;

They shall find real saints to draw from—

Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;

They shall work for an age at a sitting

and never be tired at all!

 Three: No unanswered prayers. 24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. Different hopes may spring from these words for different people. Simple, sure, direct access to God is one thing. Every blessing possible to every person is another beautiful hope. Answers to our questions – all of our questions – is yet another.

Phillip Yancey wrote a whole book about the question, “Why.” He called it the question that never goes away. I wish I had not given away my copy of the book! Somewhere, Yancey has said, “When I pray for another person, I am praying for God to open my eyes so that I can see that person as God does, and then enter into the stream of love that God already directs toward that person.” Also, he’s written, “Prayer is keeping company with God.” Amen. The eternal life, of heaven and earth, is definitely keeping company with God. I’ve always thought this surely means any questions or problems I see now will be nothing then.

Five: No danger or discord in all creation. Is. 65:25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, but the serpent—its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

Have you seen the animated film, Zootopia? Yes, with our grandchildren we’ve watched it a few times. Picture a world of animals, talking animals, of course, where all the ‘former predators’ no longer eat meat. No animal eats another animal. The plot thickens with some predators start attacking prey. I won’t spoil it!

As we get to November 15^th, a day when the human population is estimated to reach 8 billion, and our warm, stormy fall goes on and on, we may wonder about the renewal of all creation hinted at in scripture. It is a beautiful vision we can keep, and that can guide.

So, are there things you would add to your wish list for the afterlife? Something other than these five?

1.    no sadness nor anxiety,

2.    no death in life, ever,

3.    no more doing anything that’s pointless,

4.    all questions answered, and

5.    all at peace among all living things.

We could explore a lot more what the journey looks like, from this life to the next. Later, later.

What was it Safed the Sage said, at the end of his little story? And I considered that our Heavenly Father knoweth that our minds also are but the minds of Little Children, and all our Mental Pictures of Celestial Things are limited, and that much which we learn of Divine Truth is even as the Pyonder Roll.