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Closer Than We Know

Acts 1:6-14
June 1, 2014

In the years following my mothers death in 1977, when I was three and my
brother was a year old, family and friends of my mother used many words
to try and make sense of her death, not only for my brother and I, but for
my father too, and for themselves as well. There was one phrase in
particular, though, that seemed to be universally agreed upon, because at
some time or another, every person who ever uttered a word about my
mom uttered these words at some time or another - Its okay now. Your
mother has gone to heaven. There were always variations on this theme,
like your mom is in heaven; God took your mom to heaven; your moms
an angel in heaven. But fundamentally, your mother has gone to
heaven.

That phrase captivated me growing up. At times it infuriated me too
because I never quite understood why my mom would need to go
anywhere, least of all heaven, especially when everything she needed - my
father, my brother, me - were all right in front of her. It infuriated me, but
mostly it captivated me.

I would often wonder how I could go and see my mom. If she simply went
somewhere, then it was only a matter of locating her; once I had located
her, then it was just a matter of finding someone who could take me to her.
Surely, I thought, she must have left the equivalent of a forwarding
address, or whatever a child would call that.

One of my very first childhood memories that I trust as real, is the last time
my father drove me to see my mom, on this side of heaven. I dont recall
all the details of the day, but I remember my dad driving my brother and me
to the hospital. My dad was carrying my brother in one arm and me in the
other, when we walked into the hospital room. My mom was very sick.
She was sitting up in a chair. She had on a pink robe and white slippers.
Her hair was not combed. She had bed-head. A kid definitely remembers
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that. I remember sitting on her lap. I dont remember what she said to me,
but Im sure she said something to me. Probably something loving,
because thats what mothers say to their sons.

I dont remember leaving the hospital that day. I dont remember jumping
off her lap. I dont remember a kiss good-bye or a hug.

All I remember is that the next time I saw my mom, she was lying down in a
casket. Her hair was combed. Her face was beautiful. Her skin was cold.
I dont remember what she was wearing, but Im sure it was lovely. Dead
mothers were lovely dresses.

Someone - I dont know who - said your mom has gone to heaven.

Eventually, I dont know when exactly, someone took me to see my mom in
heaven. I dont know what I was expecting heaven to look like, only that
my mom would be there. When I arrived, I didnt see my mom. It was the
cemetery outside the church where I grew up. My mom wasnt there, but
chickens were. There was a large chicken farm next to the grave where
my mom was buried. Its no longer there. Theres an excavation company
that parks their trucks next to her grave now. When I visited my moms
grave, at least for as long as the chickens lived next door, I would dust the
chicken feathers off the base of the tombstone where the wind would trap
them. No sign of my mother in heaven; only chickens.

The words of the angels on Sunday morning have a particular resonance
with me: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Your mother is
not here. She is risen. Enter the voice at my mothers funeral: Your mom
has gone to heaven.

I sometimes wish I would have had the same opportunity the disciples had
to watch Jesus ascend to heaven. I feel cheated. All I got was Good
Friday with mom. And the three days it should have taken before I got the
good news that she had risen from the dead, have now turned into 40
years. Im not saying that watching her ascend to heaven would have been
easy, but somehow I think I could have accepted it more easily, knowing
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that it was from heaven that she could now be with me all the time,
because thats one of the things we say Jesus ascension accomplished: it
meant that he could be with all people all the time, everywhere, instead of
just one place at a time.

_______

Raise your hand if youve ever lost someone you loved.

Do you still feel them close to you?

____

I dont know about you, but I have a beef to pick with Plato. He managed
to infiltrate the Western mind and plant the seed that if there is a heaven,
then it must necessarily be nonphysical, because heaven exists beyond the
reach of space, time, and matter. But what if Plato was/is wrong? What if
the ancient Israelite scriptures were right, and that heaven and earth were
after all the twin halves of Gods created reality, designed eventually to
come together? (N.T. Wright, Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He
Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters)

See, our spiritual ancestors believed that heaven was close. It was not
some far off place as many imagine it today. In the Biblical worldview,
heaven and earth are interlocking realities. Much in the same way that we
might interlock our hands together using our fingers. In some respects,
interlocking our fingers presents our hands as one hand; yet, hardly anyone
would come running up to you in a fit of panic, asking What happened to
your other hand when you intertwined your fingers? One hand, but two
hands. The same, but different. Connected, but also separate.

Another way that is helpful to think about this came to me a couple of
nights ago. Shawnda and the kids spent the night with me at the synod
assembly. When we checked into our room, Zoey noticed a door in the
wall just to the right of one of the beds.

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Whats that?

Oh, thats an adjoining door.

Whats an adjoining door?

Its a door that joins this room with the room next to it.

Thats so cool.

Totally.

So, I could unlock that door and walk into the next room?

Yes and no. (If youre here today and not Lutheran, yes and no is
standard Lutheran response to complex questions.)

What do you mean?

Well, we have a door with a lock and the other room has a door with a
lock. In order for you to walk from this room into that room, youd have to
unlock our door, and someone from the other side, the other room, would
have to unlock their door. Then you could walk from this room into the
next.

Cool. Can we go swimming now?

Of course.

______

The Western, Platonic tendency, is to say that only the door to our room is
the real door. It is the only substantive, material door. The other door,
however, is not substantive and is immaterial. And we have accepted this
into our conventional faith wisdom. In some respects, we Christians are
just happy if someone will concede that there is another door, another
reality, even if we cant see, touch, taste, smell, or hear it. But the Biblical
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worldview says - not so fast. The Biblical worldview, by no means perfect,
and in many ways primitive according to our so-called enlightened minds,
says that there is another reality. It says that it is not far away. It says that
it is near. The Biblical worldview says that while this other reality or realm,
if you will, is not only real, it also happens to be breaking into this reality,
this realm right now, and that this happened decisively in the birth of Jesus,
at his death, in his resurrection, and at his ascension. The Biblical
worldview further asserts that not only was the resurrection of Jesus
something that happened to Jesus in the middle of time; it is something that
will happen to you and me as well at the end of time.

This has always been one of my contentions with the argument for a
resurrection of Jesus in spirit only, because if resurrection in spirit is all that
happened to Jesus and, consequently is what will happen to us too, then
our bodies are irrelevant. Theres an environmental corollary to this
approach, but not enough time to get into it. Needless to say, the pro-
spiritual, anti-material approach, suggest that only the spiritual is worth
mentioning and that the material can simply be discarded when the spiritual
no longer needs it for transportation. The misguided approach also makes
problematic the central affirmation that God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
God loves the world, not just the spirit of the world. God loves our bodies,
not just the spirit of our bodies.

Jesus resurrection makes all things new, including our spirit and our body.
This is why we speak of his resurrection as the 8th day of creation. It
ushers in a new creation. He is making all things new, not just spiritual
things; all things.

______

I have done more funerals than I can remember. I have sat by besides with
families, holding hands, and crying while their loved ones breathe the last
breath in their lungs. And I have seen one door give way to another, both
locks turning at the same time, and the wall that divides us, or appears to
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divide us, fading away, as though it were never really there to begin with.
And it makes me wonder if it ever really was there at all, the wall that
divides us our realities, or if we put it there as a buffer, because to live so
close to heaven scares the hell out of us, and sadly, we seem to have
developed something of an appetite for the things that keep God at a
distance: fear, anxiety, shame, hopelessness, despair, to name a few hells.

And so we lock our door, and push a chair in front of it for safe-keeping,
and we keep to our side of reality, and demand that God keep to his until,
of course, God is no respecter of my boundaries, and unlocks our door
from the other side or just comes through the door without our permission,
which is downright rude, by the way, but necessary. Kind of helps you
appreciate just how much God really loves us to allow us the freedom to
believe we can actually keep him out if he wants to kick the door in, and
step out of heaven and into heaven-earth-earth.

When Jesus does come again, to judge the living and the dead, somehow I
think hell employ the help of my mom. She wont have to kick the door
open. Ill unlock it for her. And our fingers will interlock. And well talk
about everything under the Son.