"While Heaven is Important it's not the End of the World!"

Tom (NT) Wright notes that "while heaven is important it's not the end of the world!" Today, as we struggle with how we are to be Christian in this world so that God in Christ may truly be Lord, we recognize that that means allowing God to be Lord in and of this World so that we might truly be all we are called to be and too, that God's Creation might become the Eden it is meant to be. One view of heaven and Christianity sees heaven as the final destination of all the faithful, now disembodied, and it considers earth or "the world" (cosmos) in which we dwell something we must escape, but that is not the view we find in Scripture. 

Instead, we know that we find ourselves justified and sanctified by God so that we may carry out a mission in and to this world. We look for the transformation of all reality into God's new creation. Even the hermits I know understand that their own withdrawal from what we may call "the world" is a call to withdraw from that which is resistant to Christ so that Christ may be the Lord of the larger world around us with the aid of our prayer and other ministry, limited though this latter may be. We must focus our gaze and our energies not on "getting to heaven", or on some sort of disembodied existence, but instead on being pioneers of God's new heaven and new earth. We are called to live as People of Hope so that God in Christ and the Power of the Holy Spirit, may transform our world in light of Jesus' death, (bodily) resurrection, and (bodily) ascension.

My Scripture class finished NT Wright's Surprised by Hope this morning and the course was an amazing experience for almost everyone. Not only were most folks' perspectives on heaven and what Scripture teaches about this and the future that ultimately lies in front of us changed, but so were some aspects of our view of the role of the Church in this world and the importance of being a People of Hope so that we can move forward despite the looming consequences of our recent election and the growing influence of Christian Nationalism, etc. 

The class especially came to appreciate how meaningful is every small thing we do that images Christ in our world as we each participate in the interpenetration of heaven and earth that is already begun here and now. We know that what we each do is infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things. Still, we hold onto Tom Wright's image of the smallest tile or swirl in a design on the tiniest piece of stonework on the hugest cathedral in the world, and we recognize the cathedral is incomplete without it while its overall beauty is enhanced by it. That tiny swirl on that only somewhat less tiny bit of stonework fits with all the billions of other bits as an integral part of the overwhelming beauty of that still-to-be-completed cathedral. And so, we each do our little bit, knowing that while we cannot imagine the plan the architect has for all of this, nothing is ever lost to God, nothing is inconsequential or forgotten, and in the end, it all represents necessary parts of the coming new creation where God is all in all.