Heaven is a place on Earth

Sermon on Acts 1:6-14

Last summer, watching clouds was Theo’s favorite game. While driving through California on our summer vacation with 6 people packed into a Mazda 5, Theo would suddenly yell: “Look, a crocodile. It’s gigantic. It’s fighting a lion.” I guess that’s not unusual for a then 5-year-old. But Theo also saw his great-grandfather and our deceased dog in the skies. And he often saw God and Jesus, and sometimes Mary. All of them were happily in heaven now and he was so glad to know that our dog was watching God now. What an eternal upgrade. 

Theo’s theory totally makes sense. Christ left his friends behind and vanished into the clouds, 40 days after Easter. That’s how Luke explains in Acts why the risen Christ doesn’t walk around on earth anymore like he used to for a couple of weeks. So, his friends stood and gazed up in awe and shock. Why did he have to leave again? Hadn’t he risen from death to be with them always? They looked up. How long? Maybe minutes. Maybe hours. Time had lost its meaning while they were waiting for a miracle. For anything to bring him back. There was so much they still needed to understand. That’s the beginning of the church. A bunch of confused people gazing up without words.

Well, the miracle came. 2 men dressed all in white appeared and asked the obvious question: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Peter and the others suddenly woke from their trance and turned around. What on earth were they doing here? Staring into the clouds like little kids hunting for dragons and princes in the sky on a summer day. As grown men. How embarrassing. But before they could explain themselves, the men continued and said: “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Meaning: This too will pass. 

So, they did what they did last time, Jesus vanished from their lives. They go home and hunker down and pray day and night. This too will pass. For now, it will last.

The feast of Ascension. To all who wonder what’s that about in short: It’s the day when Jesus Christ decided to work from home. But of course, he did it in the same way we are experiencing it right now. Jesus is at home together with his Father. They truly know everything the other one is up to. It’s pretty impossible to have secrets when you are around each other 24/7. 

Most of us have gotten a sense of what it means these days to be stuck at home and to travel the world virtually at the same time. I have attended webinars all over the US, every Sunday we have people worshipping with us from far away. I am so thankful for all of you to join us!

Christ has one advantage. He doesn’t even have to schedule Zoom meetings back to back. He can be here and there and everywhere at the same time without leaving his safe heaven. 

Christ is out and about all the time. Through his ascension, Christ came us closer than ever before. Nothing bonds him to a place or space in time. He is busy non-stop. He attends one meeting after the other and even does them simultaneously. 24/7 he is present in some bread and some wine around the world. 24/7 he is the one we help and also the one we don’t help. The one we invite into our group and the one we exclude. 24/7 his face is around us, when we look into other people’s faces and when we look into the mirror.

During his earthly mission Jesus glorified God: He obeyed God’s commands by healing and teaching and reaching for the people everyone avoided. And thus, he revealed God’s power to touch the untouchable and to stick to the weirdos and strangers who often had nothing to lose and everything to win. 

They won “eternal life”, defined strictly as “that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” It’s that simple: Whoever loves God knows God, has eternal life. Whoever has experienced any kind of bonding-moment in life with God, has already started living eternally. We are not trying to live a good live to end up in heaven when we are dead. That’s not the point of faith and love. The point is that our life already started to be eternal. That’s how Heaven is a place on earth. 

This is empowering and challenging. Because we cannot pretend to be waiting for something God has yet to provide before we get working. Before we get glorifying God as Jesus did. There is no reason for us to gaze faithfully up to the sky for years and to wait and say: “If only…” 

If eternal life is a sign for heaven, then heaven has millions of places on earth. If love is a sign for heaven, then heaven has millions of places on earth. If trust is a sign for heaven, then heaven has millions of places on earth. If prayer is a sign for heaven, then heaven has millions of places on earth.

Yesterday evening, heaven came up for me quite unexpected. I had promised a friend who is moving back to Finland, to pick up all the stuff from her place she didn’t have time to get rid off to gift it away for her. When I pulled up in front of her house at 8 pm, I didn’t even lock the car, because I expected to just carry down a couple of boxes and leave. We were going to say our Goodbyes on Sunday anyway. When I entered her place, it was this great chaos 2 nights before you move out. No furniture left but still so much stuff all over the place. And the kitchen cupboards, the fridge and the freezer were still full of food items. Her 8-year-old daughter was watching TV upstairs. So, I just asked her: “Where do we start?” 

After approximately 1 hour, I remembered to lock the car and get my phone to text Philipp that I was gonna come later. And if he could please rearrange the living-room into Sunday’s church look already? 30 minutes later, I shortly thought about the sermon I hadn’t finished yet. And then I figured that I couldn’t speak about Heaven on earth to you the next day without bringing a little bit of heavenly relief to my friend. 

2,5 hours later we had successfully battled the kitchen. My car was loaded with dried and canned food for all the pandemics to come. I also got a huge bag of spices which will make the cans much more delicious thanks to Philipp’s amazing cooking. We are ready to self-quarantine if ever needed, I guess. 

Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Christ is not where Heaven is. Heaven is where Christ is. Heaven is a place on earth. So real, that we can see it and touch it and smell it and taste it. In bread and wine, in tears and laughter, in a heart-beat and a kiss. In our suffering. In our dancing. There is no place on earth where Christ cannot be with us.  Heaven is a place on earth and one day, it will be a place in heaven. Until then, we can for God and Christ in the clouds for a while and then, get to work right here on earth and love and get things done. And dance. Because then Heaven is a place on earth. Amen.