The Bungee Cord. 8-26-24

Hello,

I am sitting in the Denver airport awaiting my flight back home after my visit to my son ‘s for his 40th birthday. (Actually, it was my birthday, but he decided to join his birthday to mine for a grand celebration!). About thirty people came to his house for the party. Most of them were about my son’s age, but there were a few of us “seasoned” folks there, too. I was sitting down on a bench talking to the young woman who lives across the street from him, when her three-year-old daughter hopped on her lap. As she was hugging her daughter, she said to me, “My daughter and I have been talking a lot about heaven lately, and she has a question for you.”

Uh oh!

And with a question deep in her eyes she looked straight into my eyes and said to me, “Where is heaven?”

I didn’t think I could answer her by saying, “I’m retired.” So, I tried to turn my brain on very quickly, and I said to her, “Well, I don’t think heaven is so much a place, but rather being with someone.”

Her three-year-old questioning eyes deepened, and then I said, “When I go to heaven, I know that when I get there, I will find myself sitting on God’s lap.” And as she was sitting on her mother’s lap and in her embrace, I went on to say, “Doesn’t it feel great to sit on your mommy’s lap? The great thing about being alive is that God gives us great people who love us and we get to sit on their laps for a while. And the great thing about when we die is that we get to sit on God’s lap forever!”

Now her eyes were deeply puzzled, and she asked me, “How can we all fit?”

“Well, God is that big!”

It seems that her grandmother had recently died, and she was struggling with her loss. Life is full of firsts for a three-year-old, and this first seemed to be full of captivating feelings of sadness. Of course, you don’t have to be three to experience firsts in life, and even when things are a first, their power, as in the case of death, still can captivate us with sadness.

Where is heaven? Maybe you have found yourself asking that question. Or maybe you wonder if heaven even exists? If you listen to some Christians talk, they seem to know more about heaven than earth. But me, I find myself quite daunted by the concept of heaven. Eternity is impossible for me to conceive, and in some ways is frightening. I don’t believe it is up, and that there’s a man upstairs waiting for me there. I don’t believe that there is some eternal spirit within me that escapes from this body and passes through pearly gates. I don’t believe that only good people go there, because if that were so, no one would be there, including me.

This is what I believe. “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:1,2)

I am a father, and now I am a grandfather, and I remember and know the power that comes with a child sitting on their parent’s (or grandparent’s lap). I remember the power to bring tears of hurt and pain to an end that comes with sitting on a loved one’s lap. I remember the power of peace and delight that comes from reading a book together on a loved one’s lap. I remember the power of hope and joy that comes from being embraced by a loved one while sitting on their lap. I remember the solace and trust that comes from singing a song to a beloved child sitting on your lap. A lap of a loved one is full of power!

Where is heaven? Does heaven exist? By the resurrection of Jesus, who ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty we know this: it is sitting eternally on God’s lap.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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