Last week I spoke in church about what happens after we die – heaven (I didn’t get to hell) – new creation and all that stuff. I only decided to jump into that subject when I was about half way thru a busy week, so I knew that I entered the room with some gaps in my knowledge.

Then again if there was ever a place for gaps then this subject would be the one. The Bible speaks quite a lot of heaven – but rarely with clarity and articulate descriptions. We are just told ‘today you will be with me in paradise’ (Jesus to the thief next to him during his crucifixion) or ‘I would rather go to be with Jesus which is better by far’ (Paul in Philippians Ch 1). There are various other statements made, but there is no schedule of events taking place each day in heaven and no description of how we will spend our (infinite) amount of time.

Even to jump from heaven to the idea of new creation, we make inferences from the information given rather than speaking with absolute clarity. That Jesus had a new body that was ‘similar but different’, suggests that may be on the cards for us too. His new body bore scars from his crucifixion. He needed to eat… so maybe we will too… I think…

I opened the night by asking who would like to go to heaven immediately. I was guessing there may have been a 40 (yes) 60 (no) split, but in fact it was more like 95 (yes) to 5 (no). I didn’t have time to ruminate with people around their choices, but I was somewhat surprised. It’s only been in recent years that I have anticipated heaven, possibly a function of aging, or possibly a result of grappling with it as an idea and coming to appreciate it a little. I guess I could go there now… but I feel like I have stuff I’d like to do here. In fact my biggest struggle is feeling like I’m gonna run out of time and not get around to all of the things I’d like to do.

Which then led me to thinking if perhaps new creation is the time when I get to work overseas for a few years or live in a country town for a while, or even do a working holiday thru Europe. I’d like to learn kite-surfing, foiling and a few other skills, but I may have left my run a bit late in this lifetime. Will the new creation be a place where we can keep pursuing dreams and ambitions?

One person gave me a hard time for not being able to ‘imagine eternal life’ on Sunday, but I really can’t imagine how we will spend an eternity. I wonder if there will be ‘work’ in the new creation – surely there will be purpose and focus to our days – but will some people have elite high paying jobs while others drive tuk tuks in Bangkok?

What we can know is that God will be making all things new – restoring the world to factory settings and beginning again in a sense. Could we stuff it up again?… In theory not, because there will be no sin, suffering and pain, but that’s a complexity all of it’s own. If there is only peace, joy and righteousness then I wonder how we grow and learn? Do we even need to learn? I’d imagine the eternal realm would be a great space to pursue the things that have been out of reach in this time round.

And then there’s hell… I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading around this lately – none of it from the ‘eternal conscious torment’ camp – I rejected this idea many years ago. Now it’s a toss up between annhiliationism and Christian universalism – although I tend to think the universalists still get tarred with the ‘H’ brush. I haven’t had a chance to read the ‘4 views’ book on Hell yet, but I’d like to open that box up again. I am trying to read David Bentley Hart’s ‘That All May Be Saved, but his castigating tone (maybe its just the narrator on the audio book) makes it sound as if the rest of the world is utterly foolish if they don’t accept this conclusions. I will keep going though as I find this subject interesting, albeit difficult to know for sure which conclusion is correct.

Am I ready to die tomorrow? In one sense, yes. absolutely and I am now anticipating heaven and all it brings much more. That said if I get to hang around for another 20 or so years then I won’t be disappointed either.