Are We in Heaven? Are We in Hell?

RCL Advent 3B

11 December 2011

Saint Faith’s Anglican Church

Vancouver BC

Propers:  Isaiah 61.1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5.16-24; John 1.6-8, 19-28

Focus Text:  Psalm 126

We seek him here, we seek him there,


Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.

Is he in heaven?  Is he in hell?


That demmed, elusive Pimpernel.

            Perhaps you recognize these words, penned more than one hundred years ago for the London play, The Scarlet Pimpernel, and subsequently rendered immortal by Lesley Howard, the British actor, when he speaks them in the 1934 film version of the story.  As we celebrate yet one more Advent Sunday in a history that stretches back more than two millennia, it is tempting to compose a contemporary Christian version of the poem:

We seek him here, we seek him there,

We Christians seek him everywhere.

Is he coming?  When is he coming?

That demmed, elusive Servant King.

Our waiting for the coming again of our Messiah has become less urgent over the centuries.  But the questions that his first coming raised for his contemporaries and for those who follow the way of Christ have not decreased in their urgency.  Last week I spoke of two of those:  death and judgement.  Today I want to turn to heaven and hell, the final ‘last things’ in traditional Advent spirituality.

            During the closing years of the Second World War C. S. Lewis, the British scholar and theologian, wrote a series of stories which were collected and published in a single volume with the title, The Great Divorce.  The Great Divorce is the tale of a man who leaves a dingy, dusty grey town on a bus excursion to a far more pleasant place.  When he arrives there, he discovers that he and his companion travellers have left hell and arrived in heaven.  During their day trip to heaven, each of the travellers will have the opportunity to choose to remain.  It may surprise you, if you haven’t read the book, to learn that most choose to return to hell --- a cold, dreary place where life goes on at a humdrum pace coloured by constant ordinariness.  At the end of the story the narrator awakes to discover that it has all been a dream, but it is a dream with great significance.

            What the narrator has learned is that we need to be careful how we view the world in which we live:  How you look at the world is the way it is.  If you look at the world as a place abandoned by God where we are left to our own devices, then you will no doubt enjoy Kevin O’Leary’s unabashed laissez-faire capitalism where the acquisition of wealth is morally neutral and winning means everything.  If you look at the world as if it were flat where there is nothing more to our lives than simply slogging along each day, then you will no doubt believe that dreams have nothing to tell us and that success is fleeting while defeat is life-long.

            Most of the day-trippers from hell in Lewis’ The Great Divorce are unwilling to change their perspective on the world.  Their unwillingness to change their perspective prevents them from embracing the possibilities offered to them by staying in heaven.  These possibilities require some work on their part, but the promise that these possibilities offer, in Lewis’ view, are worth the effort and the risk.  And what is the risk?  The risk is that if you accept the offer to stay in heaven, you will never view your life in the same way.

            If you accept the offer to stay in heaven, Lewis suggests, then all the events of your past are seen in a new light.  Old hurts, old wrongs, old disappointments are transformed, because we now see them as moments in which we glimpsed, even for just a fleeting moment, the possibilities of new life tendered to us from the bounty of God.  Accepting the offer to stay in heaven leads us to live these words:

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise

for all you have done for us.

We thank you for the splendour of the whole creation,

for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life,

and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends,

and for the loving care

which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us tasks

which demand our best efforts,

and for leading us to accomplishments

which satisfy and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures

that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

[The Book of Alternative Services 1985, 129]

More importantly, Lewis suggests that the offer to live in heaven rather than in hell is an offer made to us in this life, at this very moment.  In making this suggestion Lewis follows the teaching of John the Evangelist who repeatedly writes about the kingdom of God as a present reality as well as a future hope:  “[John] came as a witness to testify to the light . . . . The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.”  [John 1.7a, 9]

            Too often we neglect to meditate on the words of the Psalms we recite in our celebrations of daily prayer and the eucharist.  Hear again the words of today’s psalm, from a different version:  “When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’  The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.”  [Psalm 126.1-3, New Revised Standard Version]  These words were composed after the Jewish people were allowed to return to Judah following their exile in Babylon.  All was not well in the decades and centuries following the return from exile, but this psalm continued to be sung by Jews and by Christians living in difficult times.  It was and is and will continue to be the expression of a choice for heaven even when surrounded by hell.

            Are we in heaven?  Are we in hell?  The choice, quite frankly, is ours to make.  While all around us there are religious people who spend a great deal of time pondering life after death, there are not enough religious people in the here and now choosing heaven and rejecting hell.  Choosing heaven means opening our minds and our hearts to the presence of God in the present, even as we hope for that presence in the future, whether in this life or in the life to come.  Choosing heaven means opening our senses, all of them, to discern God’s activity in every dimension of our lives, whether joys or sorrows, successes or failures, even as we hope for that future day when “Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves.”  [Psalm 126.6, New Revised Standard Version].

            Be careful how you look at the world because that is the way it is.  My friends, Sunday after Sunday, season after season, we gather in this place to clear our eyes of the greyness that obscures our sight, making it difficult to choose heaven and reject hell.

• Here in this place we can hear the good news of God proclaimed and our ears are opened. 
• Here in this place we can touch one another in peace and hands are opened. 
• Here in this place we can see the signs of God’s activity in our lives and eyes are opened. 
• Here in this place we can catch whiffs of the banquet God has prepared, is preparing and will prepare for all people and noses are opened. 
• Here in this place we can taste the bread and wine of new life and mouths are opened. 

Because this is the way the world is. 

We are surrounded by heaven not by hell --- if we choose this perspective.  To choose to see heaven rather than hell is not about naïve optimism, but to make a choice to participate in God’s mission begun in Jesus of Nazareth, a choice we made and have renewed many times:

• Do you renounce Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God?  I renounce them.
• Do you renounce all the evil powers of this world which corrupt and destroy the creatures of God?  I renounce them.
• Do you renounce all sinful desires that draw you from the love of God?  I renounce them.
• Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Saviour?  I do.
• Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?  I do.
• Do you promise to obey him as your Lord?  I do.

It is not easy to choose heaven rather than hell.  The powers and principalities that deny God are real and they afflict all us, religious and non-religious, deflecting us from choosing life rather than death, hope rather than despair, action rather than inaction.  But resistance is never futile.

So, my sisters and brothers, are we in heaven or are we in hell?  The choice is ours to make today and, if needs be, renew tomorrow and every day of our lives.  Let us choose wisely.  Amen.