Hold my hand and we’re halfway there; hold my hand, and I’ll take you there…
In the musical version of Jesus’ last night with his disciples, maybe he’d break into song. Somewhere. A place for us. (I’m reminded of a lot of pop songs in this reading… stay tuneful this week!). He is trying to comfort his followers, as they begin to realize he is soon to be taken from them.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”
If only we could believe it when people say they’re coming back for us. If small children could trust that mom’s not disappearing for good, they’d need fewer blankets and bears. If young women could trust that men really do just “want some space,” there’d be fewer bad love songs. We can’t believe what we can’t conceive – and how could Jesus’ friends conceive of life beyond death, not to mention a place “out there” with him and lots of dwelling places and plenty of room for everyone?
How can we? This passage is often used at funerals. Perhaps it comforts the bereaved to know their loved one has a front-door key waiting on a hook somewhere – though I doubt anyone who’s enjoying pure Being has much use for a zip code. But we like to know where our people are, to imagine them in a place. Maybe we like to imagine ourselves in a place, so we've have taken the Bible's few symbolic hints about heaven and worked them into a city with golden streets and gem-encrusted gates.
I’m not yet concerned about arranging for my plot in the afterlife. I know that I can start living that life where I am now. We can access the heavenly places all kinds of ways – in worship, in prayer, in a walk on a fine day – anywhere and any time we feel ourselves connected to Jesus, in the presence and light and love of God.
What is your view of the afterlife – your afterlife? Is it something you imagine?
If only we could believe it when people say they’re coming back for us. If small children could trust that mom’s not disappearing for good, they’d need fewer blankets and bears. If young women could trust that men really do just “want some space,” there’d be fewer bad love songs. We can’t believe what we can’t conceive – and how could Jesus’ friends conceive of life beyond death, not to mention a place “out there” with him and lots of dwelling places and plenty of room for everyone?
How can we? This passage is often used at funerals. Perhaps it comforts the bereaved to know their loved one has a front-door key waiting on a hook somewhere – though I doubt anyone who’s enjoying pure Being has much use for a zip code. But we like to know where our people are, to imagine them in a place. Maybe we like to imagine ourselves in a place, so we've have taken the Bible's few symbolic hints about heaven and worked them into a city with golden streets and gem-encrusted gates.
I’m not yet concerned about arranging for my plot in the afterlife. I know that I can start living that life where I am now. We can access the heavenly places all kinds of ways – in worship, in prayer, in a walk on a fine day – anywhere and any time we feel ourselves connected to Jesus, in the presence and light and love of God.
What is your view of the afterlife – your afterlife? Is it something you imagine?
Where and how do you best find yourself in touch with God in the here and how?
Is that anything like the heaven you imagine? Maybe in prayer today you can ask the Spirit to make you aware of the Somewhere God intends for you to dwell in.
We are invited to live already as though we know that place, that Somewhere, where Jesus is, where God is. And when we live out of that conviction, we bring it into being in the here and now. Forgiveness and love and giving our stuff away to people who need it become a lot more natural – we’re living the life of heaven.
Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living, we'll find a way of forgiving …Somewhere …
Is that anything like the heaven you imagine? Maybe in prayer today you can ask the Spirit to make you aware of the Somewhere God intends for you to dwell in.
We are invited to live already as though we know that place, that Somewhere, where Jesus is, where God is. And when we live out of that conviction, we bring it into being in the here and now. Forgiveness and love and giving our stuff away to people who need it become a lot more natural – we’re living the life of heaven.
Somewhere. We'll find a new way of living, we'll find a way of forgiving …Somewhere …
Somewhere is here, my friends. Some time is already.
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