Sexagesima Sunday 27.2.11 Our true home
We have been thinking much about the earthquake in Christchurch just last Tuesday, and of course we pray for everyone concerned there, the living and the dead.
We think, what if it happened here? Disaster seem to be everywhere at the moment. We (in Adelaide) have been spared but who knows what may be coming?
As Christians we know we are supposed to be ready for anything as far as death and destruction goes.
But it is always legitimate to pray to avert disasters, to be delivered from evil. So we make that prayer as well.
But while we pray for the least possible number of things to go wrong we also must be ready for anything that does happen, including loss of property, or loss of life (of others or even our own).
We must cultivate an attitude of detachment from all things and all people. Detachment does not mean indifference, as though we could not care in the least what happens to anyone or anything else.
We are supposed to care for other people and (in the right way) for property, but detachment means we see that compared with God and with eternal life, everything here on earth is less important.
For example the premature death of a person is a tragedy in one sense, but if that person goes to heaven the tragedy is only relative. Heaven is a better place to be.
Our relationship to Heaven is a strange one. Heaven is our true home, we are told. It is the place that Our Lord has gone to prepare for us (John 14, 2-3).
It is a place of every delight, most of all the delight of seeing God face to face. A place where every tear is wiped away and no further disappointment or heartbreak is possible. A place where we will be reunited with all those who have gone before us ‘marked with the sign of faith’.
In the epistle today St Paul tells us what he can about Heaven. Unfortunately he cannot tell us much because there are no words to describe what he saw. But it was very good, we can be sure of that.
As we can tell Heaven has a lot to recommend itself. Yet we do not want to go that place today, or tomorrow, or anytime soon. Most of us at least, even if we believe in it, do not want to go there!
There is a legitimate reason for not wanting to go to Heaven too soon - if God wants us to stay here on earth for a time to do His will.
But apart from that reason we should be straining and striving with all our power to get to our true home. Like the deer that yearns for running streams; like the watchman waiting for the dawn.
The prospect of Heaven is a very real one, and it is very consoling when we let it sink in. However, because of the time factor it can sound like a very far-off consolation; like being told you will feel a lot better in a hundred years time!
Is there anything we can do to bring heaven a little closer to us now? Two things.
One, make heaven around us by the way we live. If we live by the values of the kingdom of heaven we will experience a much deeper peace and joy even in this trouble-prone phase of our lives.
Two, if the main delight of heaven is union with God, we have that already in this life. We can do various things to increase that union: prayer, sacraments, adoration, good works. We will not always feel His closeness but we can at least ‘know’ He is there through faith.
This will be enough heaven-on-earth to hold us together till we get to the actual place.
O Lord, deliver us from all evil here and bring us safely to our true home with Thee.
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