Heaven...vague and fuzzy optimism?

Jesus was raised from the dead. There is a certain promise made in this great God-event. The promise is that because Jesus was raised....I will be raised. But for some reason the Christian church, and many of its leaders, find it convenient to dilute this doctrine in order to pave a way for a feathery interpretation of eternity. In fact, our idea of heaven and hell has been madly shaped by our culture and we toy around with one of the most important and life-changing verses in the Bible; "On earth as it is in heaven."

I am guilty, even though I should know better, of perceiving death as a great enemy. Most of us feel this way because we don't understand what will happen to us one day and it is natural to fear the unknown. I see my children getting older and my hair getting thinner and I just can't stand it. And I imagine we all fall victim to believing that "heaven" can't be as good as this world because we will only praise a jealous God. Further, we won't be able to experience the tangibles that make this life so meaningful. These are our culturally driven ideas that invade our senses and really have nothing to do with the New Testament teachings of Jesus.

Imagine if the global church redefined its position on eternity and declared it no longer to be "heavenly" or "fuzzy" or a place where only your soul goes when the body dies. No wonder we struggle in areas of justice. If only our souls go to heaven, then the health of the mortal body is of no real importance; all will be worked out in the end. But that same verse keeps creeping back up on me, "on earth as it is in heaven."

Did you know that when the English churches began to preach about this feathery place where only your soul retreats, that social justice concerns began to be less important. It didn't take long for the American evangelical churches to preach only about repentance and salvation. This left little room for talk about what the Christian church should do about injustice, hunger, violence, abuse, civil rights, equality, and poverty. I do see the church catching up and finally realizing this great mistake; but we have a long way to go. I think change will come as soon as the majority of churches take on the old, forgotten doctrine of "the resurrection of the dead." Our society is ready for such talk. Society is screaming at the church to tell them something else besides the salvation of the soul. There is very little in the New Testament about the soul and heaven. However, there is a ton of passages that deal with how to actively live our lives as Christians during the here and now. Our faith should be practiced in community and it should exist for people outside the church.

So, if we begin to reexamine our view of heaven then we may begin to realize that Jesus taught about a New Jerusalem; a new creation and a new earth. And there lies our connection to the world around us...to all living things. We should care about the welfare of others and of ourselves because our bodies do matter. Jesus was raised in bodily form and we will be raised in bodily form. That should be our hope and now all of a sudden, eternity seems real and perfect, not fuzzy and only optimistic thinking.