She
is
TRAPPED;
a
PRISONER
in
her
own
body.
Pastor Joseph tried to prepare us for what we were about to do, but I don’t think any words could adequately equip our hearts for what we saw next. We walked down a dark, narrow hallway, past a room full of crib-like beds, into the main room where sat over 30 of the most severely handicapped people I had ever seen in my life, both mentally and physically.
Shrunken heads;
a row of people confined to beds.
Old, wooden adult high-chairs for feeding time, their names written in faded Sharpie…
Drool stained clothes;
wheelchairs.
Wheelchairs tied to poles.
Flies.
Flies on faces.
Heads shaking,
some screaming,
all the while,
my heart
b r e a k i n g.
***
Popular culture (in particular, American pop culture) has always done a sufficient job of mockingly distorting sometimes hard to grasp theological paradigms, that of Heaven and Hell are no exception. Traditional ideas of these concepts are absurd and even laughable at best.
Hell tends to conjure up pictures in one’s mind of an ugly little red horned creature with a pitchfork and a pointy little tail.
And Heaven?
What kinds of *glorious* imagery comes to mind?
Chubby little cherubs sitting on fluffy white clouds playing harps all day?
Or how about that effeminate looking Jesus? You know, the one that appears not at all middle-eastern, or even Jewish for that matter. Yeah, that’s right. The one holding the lamb in his arms; the one with the curly, long flowing gold-y-locks.
And how have Christ’s followers defended or refuted these notions?
For one thing, it’s pretty easy to see that historically Christians have had a tendency to be far more Hell-minded than Heaven focused.
Take for instance:
The great British preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote a 900 page systematic theology, with a mere 2 pages on the resurrection state.
American theologian and commentator Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a two volume systematic theology, with absolutely no mention of the resurrection; no mention of the great Kingdom banquet that awaits those who confess and profess Christ.
Another great theologian William Shedd had 87 pages of his dogmatics devoted to Hell, suffering, anguish and pain, with *zero* pages devoted to Heaven.
Louis Burkov, who is said to have written the presbyterian “gold standard”, devoted a single page of his Systematic Theology on the resurrection state and the Kingdom party.
Even the great Bible teacher John Calvin wrote very little about Heaven…
Contemporary author Randy Alcorn, said in his book , Heaven, that Christians when talking about Heaven, are kind of like a bunch of astronauts sitting on a shuttle that is about to launch. They look around at each other saying, “so, what do you know about Mars?” the reply: “nothing”.
And after all, why not be Hell-minded? After all, Christ himself talked about Hell more than anyone else in the Bible.
His entire life however, was the epitome of Heaven invading earth.
“God’s Kingdom come,
His will be done,
on earth..
as it is
… in Heaven.”
***
I don’t think there has been a moment yet on the race, I have so closely caught a glimpse of what Heaven must be like, than the times I spent feeding my new “rafiki”, my new friend Monthine.
In the past, it’s possible that seeing what I did that day would make me angry at God in my inability to look at earth from a *heavenly* perspective. In the past, I would question how an all-loving God could possibly allow such immense human depravity.
On this day however, rather than being confused or depressed or even angry at what I would once have seen as a grave injustice, I had an inexplicable peace… a peace that truly surpassed all I could understand. In that, I’ve come to the realization that God has totally re-defined my idea of justice, and humbled me to trust that justice is in the hands of my God, not my own. My understanding of what is just and what is right, is from a mere human, earthy perspective.
Perhaps one of the best illustrations of Jesus trying to explain some of these hard to grasp ideas of human suffering and justice to his disciples is in John 9:
Jesus is walking with his disciples, and they see a man, blind from birth.
His disciples think that his lack of sight was due to sin. They ask Jesus, who sinned, was it the man, or his parents?
Jesus replies, neither this man or his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God may be displayed in his life.
Jesus healed the man.
While I prayed for Monthine, I confess, didn’t come to see her healing. At least, not in this world anyway…
Because of her disability, my new friend is forced to lay on her stomach all day. She has no movement of her legs, and little movement of her arms. Her body shakes in her inability to control herself. I put her apron over her, and made sure to spread it out so that it would not get all over the bed. Monthine saw the familiar plate of food in my hands, and her mouth opened like a baby bird for it’s mother. As I spooned the gray and purple mush into her mouth, it was all I could do to hold back tears as Heavenly images flashed through my mind.
Imagine.
It’s the best party you’ve ever been to, or could ever throw; perhaps, a wedding reception. It’s an outdoor reception on the most beautiful spring day you could possibly picture. There is an explosion of the most vibrant colors, they seem almost tangible. You see light in a new way, and experience colors you can’t express or put a name to because you’ve never even seen them before.
This is the kind of day that not even the butterflies or birds would miss, they serenade you and your guests with their songs. You reach out to touch them.
At first, it’s a bit of a strange scene- all the guests are wearing white, not just the bride. But then you realize, you are the bride. This is the happiest day of your life, the day that you are united with your true love. You’ve been burned in the past by other lovers, ones that didn’t really love you, but this is it! This is The One, and you have a kind of peace about this day unlike any kind of peace you’ve ever had before in your life. Everyone you love is there to help you celebrate. Only, they are all feeling the exact same thing you are… There is a kind of ecstasy in the air.
Imagine.
All this,
while spooning mush into the mouth of my new friend.
I told Monthine while I fed her that I couldn’t wait to sit next to her at the banquet feast in Heaven. Looking down at the mix of ugly, smelly purple cabbage, and mushy bananas, I told her, “and it will be the best food you’ve ever eaten.”
“In fact..,” I told her,
“…there will be the finest of wines and the choicest of meats!”
I told her that in Christ, she has the promise of a new body.
One that allows her to walk, and even run.
I quoted to her what I could remember of Zechariah 3:17, telling her that she is loved more than she could ever know. So much in fact, that in Heaven, Christ will quiet us with His love, and he will *rejoice* over us with singing.
I have no idea what was going on in her head,
but I know she understood.
The grin she so beautiful adorned from ear to ear told me so.
(As a side note, in fact, many of the women we worked with there would respond and smile at the name of Jesus.)
These, I have come to believe, are the realities of Heaven. These are the things that few ever picture Heaven to be like, perhaps because of its difficulty. You know, to see *this* world.
Perfect.
*This* world,
minus sin and all of its effects.
*THIS* WORLD.
***
When we got home from Mother Theresa’s and debriefed as a team how it went, all of us agreed that it was an amazingly humbling experience. For many of us, in 8 months of serving, it was one of our favorite ministries we’ve partaken in on the race. Josh likened us to soldiers fighting a battle, not with weapons of iron and steel, but with something even more violent: a kind of the most intense and piercing kind of love, the love of Christ.
I think it was around this time I was really truly starting to get it. I was starting to get what it really looks like to live and walk with a Kingdom kind of purpose for life.
Christ, working through me during my time on The World Race, has forced me to come to re-define my purpose for life and my reality in a whole new way. It has re-shaped my idea of what it truly means to be a Christ follower, and how throughout my time on this earth, it is summed up in the prayer of Jesus himself:
“Your kingdom come,
Your will be done.
on earth
as it is in Heaven.”
It’s about modeling the life of Jesus.
It’s about being a willing vessel, one fully and completely directed by God through the work of the Holy spirit.
It’s about fighting a battle
to bring the realities of Heaven
*here*,
to
*earth*!
