The doorstep of heaven

The Sadducees attempt to discredit Jesus by showing that his belief in an afterlife in heaven implies ludicrous results (Lk 20:27-38).  They assume that heaven must be pretty much like earth.  On earth, we have the laws of Moses to follow, so we must have those laws to follow in heaven, too.  If the laws don’t make sense in heaven, then heaven must not be real.  However, as we’ll see, Jesus points out that their argument is flawed because their premise is false. 

Like the Sadducees, I have spent most of my life laboring under a false premise.  No, I’ve always believed in heaven and hell.  But like the Sadducees, I had a false idea of what heaven was like.  I assumed that heaven was the end reward for following the rules and being a good boy.  If I tried to obey all the rules, go to church every Sunday, be nice to other people, avoid lying, cheating, stealing, swearing, etc. etc., I would earn credits for heaven.  On the other hand, of course, God would always be watching for those times when I wasn’t living up to the rules.  In the end, St. Peter would have this book, and on the one side would be all the nice I had done, and on the other the naughty.  My hope, of course, is that the nice would outweigh the naughty and into heaven I would go.   Does this sound familiar?  Essentially, I figured that the afterlife was essentially the ultimate Christmas – the final reckoning of who was naughty and who was nice.

However, I came to realize that this was a quite sterile and empty view of my salvation.  No matter how hard I tried, I knew that I would always be doing things that were not on the “nice” list.  Okay, so there we have this reconciliation thing, but what good is that if I continue to sin?  And if this is my faith, why would God have to send his only Son to humble himself, “take the form of a slave,” and die an excruciating death on the cross just so that I could take my shot in the naughty and nice contest?   My premise, like that of the Sadducees, must be false.

Slowly, I began to understand what Jesus tells the Sadducees.  Heaven is not about following rules; it is about our relationship with our infinite, eternal and all-loving God.  And when we have left this earth and accepted this relationship for all time, that’s all we will ever need.  We will have no physical or emotional needs, no physical limitations; we will simply be one with our Creator, the source of all happiness.

I knew that I could be with God after I had died – all I had to do was follow the rules and I’d be with God after death.  But if heaven is about our relationship with God, wasn’t I missing the fact that God has already called me into relationship with him from the moment I was conceived?  I was following rules, but not living in relationship.  For Christian faith is not a list of rules to follow; it is a relationship to live, a relationship with the One who is my creator, who created me out of love to be with him and for him for all eternity, who is the my only source of true happiness, who calls me to live in him every day of my life.

From the very beginning, God reveals this truth to us in Scripture.  He creates us in his image and likeness, giving us life by bestowing his very Spirit on us.  He interacts with us as a loving parent acts with its loved child, so radically different from the master-slave relationship that most every other culture believed was the relationship between the gods and humanity.  He calls Abraham to be his intimate friend, promising that his descendants will be his chosen people forever.  He “so loved the world, he gave us his only Son.”  His Son gives us his very body and blood as a sign of God’s everlasting love and real presence in our lives.

On my good days, when I get this relationship, it changes my life and changes my relationships with others.  I see my marriage not just as a human contract between Mary and me, but as a permanent and divine vocation, a model of the everlasting, unifying love of the Trinity.

I begin to see my fatherhood not as simply as a temporary responsibility to prepare and launch my children into adulthood, but as a permanent vocation, a model of the unconditional, life-giving love of Christ.

I begin to see life not as a struggle to be number one, but as an imperative to be one: one with my family; one with my neighbor; one with my enemy; one with the poor; one with the oppressed; one with the persecuted; one with Jesus Christ.

Furthermore, I understand that if I ignore this relationship with God while I live on earth, then I will not value this relationship when I have left earth.  I will have damned myself to an eternity without God – that’s what we call hell. 

But when I can let go of my pride, let go of my need to earn what cannot be earned – the unconditional love of God – when I can lose myself in a relationship with the all-loving God, then I am living on the doorstep of heaven.