Glimpses of the Heavenly Life'. 3
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Take one other glimpse. As we read the wonderful description of the heavenly life in the last chapters of the New Testament, we find that all the glory comes from Christ. "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne!" Revelation 5:6 "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end." "I saw no temple therein; for the Lord God the Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple thereof." "The city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb." Whatever else heaven may mean to us, it will, first of all, mean being with Christ. Here we see him only by faith, ofttimes dimly. Every day some one speaks of the difficulty of realizing the presence of Christ in this earthly life. We long to see him. Our hearts hunger for him. "We would see Jesus!" is our cry all the days. And the answer to our cry seems only an echo of our longing. As Tennyson puts it, man in this world is "An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry." But when the veil of sense that hides heaven from our sight is torn for us—and the blessedness is suddenly revealed, we shall see, first of all, before we look upon any of the splendors of the place, Him we have loved though seeing Him not— our Savior and our Friend, Jesus Christ! And he will wipe away every tear from our eyes! Being with him, we shall need nothing else to make our blessedness complete. Seeing him we shall be satisfied. Seeing him, we shall be like him, changed fully into his image. Seeing him, we shall then be with him forever.
These are only a few of the glimpses of the heavenly life which the Scriptures give us, and even these are only glimpses, as when the window opens for a moment upon the glory and then quickly closes again. Indeed no earthly language is adequate to describe the blessedness, the joy, the happiness of heaven. Perhaps no human word gathers and holds in itself so much of the truest meaning of heaven—as the word "home". Home is a place of love. It is a place of confidence. No one doubts another at home. We have nothing to hide or conceal from each other inside home's doors. We know we are loved. Home is the one place where we are never afraid of being misunderstood. Our faults may be seen and known—but we are dear in spite of them. We find there sympathy with our sufferings, and patience with our infirmities and shortcomings. Heaven is home! Into it, all God's children will be gathered. It is a place of glory, of beauty, of splendor, a holy place—but, best of all, it is a place of perfect love.
Heaven is the place where our lives will find their completion. It is the glorious end which awaits us, where all our hopes shall have their fulfillment, all our dreams their realization. Much of our life in this world, is only beginnings. We mean to do beautiful things—but when they are finished the beauty is lacking. Our worthy intentions lie as faded flowers at our feet. We tried sincerely and earnestly, and failed. We struggled hard—but were not overcomers. In heaven, however, we shall find waiting for us, not the poor attainments, the broken purposes, the sad failures that we wept over on earth—but the things we sincerely tried to do—in finished beauty now, for God takes our intentions, the things we meant to do, the things wetried to be—and makes them real in heaven—and fills them out in perfectness.
There ought to be immeasurable inspiration in the fact of heaven as the culmination and completion of life. The hope of heaven should make us strong to overcome all discouragement. No matter how hard the way here on earth is, the end is glorious. No matter how great the fierceness of the battle, the weariness of the struggle, the bitterness of the sorrow, the keenness of the suffering—glory is the final outcome. We are now and here children of God. That should be glory enough to cheer and inspire us for most courageous service.
But in this life the best is veiled. It is not yet made manifest what we shall be when we reach the goal of our life. This dull bud will open, and a glorious rose will unfold in all its splendor. From this poor, feeble, struggling earthly life—will emerge at length a child of God in glorious beauty. If only we could have a glimpse of ourselves, what we will be the moment after our friends say we are dead, what we will be when we are absent from the body and are at home with the Lord, could we go on living as if we were made only for the earth? Let us not grovel any longer. Let us who have this glorious future—not creep in the slime and dust! Let us live to be worthy of our exalted honor. We have not yet reached the best. When we see Christ, we shall be made like him.
We should remember that the road to the heavenly life starts in this world; that only those who have heaven in their hearts here, can be admitted into heaven at the last. We must receive the beginning of the heavenly purity, the heavenly joy, the heavenly peace, into our lives in this world. In the Apostles' Creed we say, "I believe in the life everlasting." We must practice our belief. Heaven must be real to our faith. It is real, more real than earth. It is a place. Our friends are there, living, loving, remembering us still, busy in the service of Christ. Let us make heaven real to ourselves — as real as our houses, the homes to which we go when we come back from a journey. Let us practice the heavenly life tomorrow and next day, at home, in business, on the street. Let us be the kind of people we would be—if we were in heaven!
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