The Beatific Vision

Revelation 22:1-6 None of us likes the idea of dying.  This is the life we know.  Most of us are so blessed by God with countless earthly gifts that it is very hard to imagine a life better than the one we have right now.  Oh, we might change a few things here and there—but for the most part we are richly blessed by God and we love our earthly life and we are grieved to be parted from it.

            But for the child of God, death is not “goodbye” to life.  Death is not “farewell” to God’s blessings.  In fact, the Bible says that death is not loss-- but gain.  That Good News is not something that we could think our way into-- or reason out for ourselves.  It must be revealed to us—and so it is in God’s word to us today.  St. John writes that:

The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

            When we stand beside a loved one who is dying, all we can see with our eyes is their departure from this life.  All we can experience is our loss.  All we can hear are our sad “goodbyes”.  But there is much, much more going on in that moment. 

Our loved one is leaving a place of death and entering a place of life.  Their eyes that are closed in this life are opened to the wonders of the mansion God has prepared for them and their ears that no longer hear our voices, are filled with the glad “welcome home” of those who have gone before-- and the “well done good and faithful servant” from God. 

We cannot hear or see or experience that—it has to be revealed to us.  That is why God sent his angel to John the show him what awaits us all when we die.  That is why these words are written—to assure us that for the child of God, death is truly gain.

The picture of heaven that John reveals to us in his revelation is very similar to the Garden of Eden.  There is beauty and light and fellowship with God.  It is a place of life—of the rich, abundant overflowing life that Jesus came to give. 

Jesus said that “God so loved the world, that he sent his one and only Son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life.”  Jesus said that it was the devil who came to rob and steal and destroy but that he had come to give us abundant life, a full measure, pressed down and overflowing.  Our passing from this earthly life is the gain of that eternal life. 

There in heaven is a river of life, a never ending source of living water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman at the well.  Just as in the Garden of Eden, here in Paradise there is a tree of life with twelve kinds of fruit, one for each month, with leaves for the healing of all our sorrrows—a tree of life that we can eat from and live eternally.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, God kept them from the tree of life so that they would not live forever in sin and broken-ness and shame.  But on the tree of the cross, sin has been atoned for and the curse of death has ended and fellowship between God and man has been restored.  The Bible says that in Paradise:

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,

            When Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden, the world and everything and everyone in it was cursed.  Nothing and no one escaped God’s judgment.  But in the Paradise there is no curse—there is only rich, abundant life. 

What accounts for that dramatic change from the Garden of Eden to Paradise?  Our crucified and risen Lord!

            When Jesus died on the cross he called out “It is finished!”—and it was.  Everything necessary for our salvation had been accomplished.  The curse that God pronounced upon the world, he charged to his Son Jesus Christ who suffered and died so that it is blessing not curse that we receive from God when we die.

Death must now serve God’s will as the means to deliver us from this place of tears to Paradise where we will worship God and the Lamb who has taken away our sin.  The Bible says that his servants will worship him.

  When we think about heaven, we not only wonder what it will be like-- but we wonder what we will do.  Our lives here on earth are busy and the days are filled with things to do, and people to see, and places to go.  We have this kind of unspoken worry that we will get bored in eternity. 

We don’t know all the answer to that question about what we will do in heaven but we do know some it. 

A big part of our life in heaven will be worshiping the God who has saved us and made us his own by the blood of the Lamb.  We will worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven—we will worship with the saints who have gone before and the four living creatures and all of those beings who are real and yet unseen.

It will be worship like we have never experienced on earth—filled with sights and sounds and smells that we have never experienced in our earthly worship. 

When we hear a beautiful solo- or when we join our voice to hundreds of others in a large worship service- or when we are particularly moved by what the beauty we see in a majestic cathedral- we begin to get some sense of what worship will be like in heaven except infinitely more. 

Far, far from being bored in heaven or tired of worship we will rejoice eternally for the blessing of being counted part of God’s people—a kingdom of priests and kings.  The Bible says those in heaven:

Will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. 

            St. Augustine once said that God has made us for himself and our hearts are never at rest until we find our rest in him.  Whether we realize or not here on earth, these verses describe what we were made for-what we long for—what theologians call the “beatific vision” of God.

Over the course of our earthly lives we can have many successes and reach many of our goals.  We can become rich and famous.  We can marry the person of our dreams. 

But it will never really be enough to satisfy us completely because we were made for something more.  We were made by God- for God- and we will never be satisfied with anything else than God. 

When we enter Paradise, that longing will be fulfilled as we gaze upon the unveiled glory of God.  What we have hoped for and prayed for and longed for during our lives (even if we could never really put a name on it) will be fulfilled as we look upon the Holy Trinity:  the One who has known us and loved us for eternity—the One who gave his life for us on the cross—the One who has called us and kept us in faith.

We are his.  We belong to him.  He has placed his name on us in the waters of Holy Baptism where he rescued us from the darkness of sin and death and shined his light and life into our hearts and minds. 

We have nothing to fear from the darkness of death and the grave because the moment we close our eyes in this life we open them to the glorious light of heaven.  We can count on that and build our lives upon that promise!  The Bible says that:

“These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

            It is normal to mourn the death of those we love.  The Bible says that even Christians grieve—but not as those who have no hope.  It is normal for us to dread our own death.  Jesus wrestled with that very thing in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

But in these verses from John’s Revelation, God pulls back the curtain that hides Paradise from our eyes here on earth, so that we can face death unafraid and so that we can rightly order our lives right now according to his Word.

You see, the promises of God are true.  He has spoken to us in the Bible and told us the truth about all that matters here on earth and in the world to come.  He has revealed his holy will for our lives and made known to us his salvation in Jesus.

We cannot see God or touch him or experience heaven right now-- but he is real and so is heaven-- and as we live our life here on earth, God wants those realities shape how we live.

God wants us to face the challenges and temptations and sorrows of this life with our eyes of faith full of the glories of heaven so that we do not lose heart and give up and give in to the ways of the world.

He wants us to know that the challenges and temptations and sorrows of this life will not last forever—that this life will end—but there will another, glorious, eternal life for us in heaven—and that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory to come.

            The promise of Eden was that God himself would restore, by the Seed of the Woman, all that sin and Satan destroyed.  In Paradise we see that God has kept his promise.  Once again there is life for us with God that death cannot end.  Amen.