I like telling people that I went to school with Bob Barker. Not the famous game show host but my good friend whom I have shared ups and downs with over four decades. Recently, Bob and his wife Jo have been visiting us here on the Oregon Coast. Bob as he explained to my five year old grandson, Payden, who was curious about the oxygen tubing attached to Bob, has lungs that just don’t work well. Payden who never met a situation he couldn’t explain then informed Bob that in heaven he wouldn’t have any tubes because God would make it all better and he would breathe just fine there. Bob affirmed this blessed forecast by approving Payden’s declaration with a resounding, “Yahoo!” Well, as resounding as Bob’s failing lungs allow him. I think Bob and Payden remind us that everybody believes in heaven… and in hell.
You see we all want the wrongs to be righted… the infirmed to be well… the evil and insolent to be punished. People talk about the delightful with the label heavenly and the painful and sorrowful as hellish. This isn’t about theology or ornate charts delineating the details of the afterlife. This is the visceral reality of every beating heart that longs for good to prevail and evil to be banished. A five year old (even as precocious as Payden) can see that the Bobs of the world shouldn’t have to suffer forever. And Payden in his desire to authenticate faith by assuring all of its certain future speaks for us all… we want life that is eternal life. Not life that last forever but life that is heavenly… life that rids itself of the enemy death that has harmed the universe and imprisoned mankind.
The irony of all this is that in a sense sin and its effects have been the best advocates for stirring mankind to long for heaven and fear hell. A fallen world according to the apostle Paul longs for the redemption of mankind (Romans 8:19-21). Eternity, as Solomon says, has been set in our hearts so we will reach after God (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Every soul coming into this world has the spark of the light that makes sense out of the nonsense (John 1:9). Even five year olds know that life should be better and that something greater… that is someone greater can and will make it better. Heaven is not just wishful thinking but an innate reality that good will triumph over evil… wrongs will be righted… and heaven will remove all the messy tubing and failing lungs! O, how heavenly for all us Bobs! -DAN
