Communicating the promise of heaven

How sweet is rest after fatigue! How sweet will heaven be when our journey is ended?—George Whitefield

The pearly gates of heaven — that is, if we believe in heaven — reopen every Easter, the feast of the resurrected Christ. It is always a happy event. As the story was told and continues to be told, the entrance was closed to mankind from the time Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden for flagrantly disobeying God. And Jesus had to become man and act in perfect obedience to the will of the Father to make up for the first couple’s sin to once again open the door to eternal life.

No one has really come out to describe with conviction and definitiveness what heaven really looks like. Of late, though, we have a number of accounts sharing what it is. We have heard of near-death experiences detailing heaven as a place where angels play sweet harp music, where dead relatives and friends reunite with a possible new entrant, and where everything is white and bright. And we have also come across children’s books and pieces of poetry portraying it as nirvana — rainbows exuding vibrant colors, exotic animals roaming around in perfect harmony, peaceful towns, bluish surroundings and people playing and laughing. Everyone has a verbal and visual image of heaven. Most religions do, too, and they should all be respected.

Colton Burpo is a four-year-old boy who seemingly died and whose soul made a short visit to heaven while his body was undergoing a disastrous appendectomy. The boy survived the surgery to tell, what his father claimed, was his journey to heaven. The incredible story was captured with vividness in the bestseller Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back, written by Colton’s father, Todd Burpo.

Colton’s narrative included his encounter with his great-grandfather whom he had never met in real life, and his sister who died in his mother’s womb. He also stumbled upon other children, angels, God the Father, and Jesus, whom he described in detail. Jesus, according to him, was the only one in heaven who didn’t have wings. “In heaven, Jesus sat right next to God on his throne. He truly loved children and taught Colton to be kind to other people. Jesus was tall, wearing a glowing white robe with a sash (Colton did not know the word “sash”), and has “the most beautiful eyes,” Burpo narrated.

A Travel Guide to Heaven, another bestseller authored by Anthony DeStefano, presents a fascinating concept of the glorious domicile — painting it as a fun, dynamic, tangible abode of unlimited pleasure, unlimited happiness, and unlimited joy. He wrote that one day after the resurrection, heaven is going to be physical as well as spiritual — where we are not just going to see spirits, but live human beings with warm bodies, faces, eyes, hair and voices. In other words we will dwell in a highly charged locale where we inhabit our current form, as we continue doing the good things we like to do.

“Heaven is like The Wizard of Oz,” DeStefano averred. Dorothy thought she was going to find her true home “by following the yellow brick road.” But what she learned is that the thing she’s looking for is right there in her own backyard. In the same way, part of heaven is going to exist someday, right here on good planet earth. “The Bible says there’s going to be a new earth; it doesn’t say there’s going to be something completely different. Our earth will be renewed, transformed and reborn. It will experience resurrection in the same way that human beings will be resurrected,” the author pronounced. Clearly, the main thesis of DeStefano’s work is: “If the life we are living now is real, life in heaven is not going to be less real. If anything, it’s going to be more real.”

“Heaven will remove our compulsions and unhealthy desires. It will be a multi-colored paradise where we will experience new things — food, fashion and music and the like — never before featured on earth,” DeStefano declared. There will be no marriages in heaven, too, unburdening us of the worries attached to the institution and sacrament. “Just because marriage doesn’t exist in heaven doesn’t mean the relationship with our partners won’t continue forever,” he stated. He compared it to a game of tennis, and illustrated: “If you’re having a match with someone on the court, you’re called tennis partners. You dress a certain way; use specific kinds of equipment, play by certain rules, and stay within certain boundary lines. Once the game ends, however, you’re no longer tennis partners. But that doesn’t mean your relationship with the person ends. On the contrary, your relationship might be even deeper off the tennis court. The same is true for our relationship in heaven. God doesn’t destroy any of them.”

Many years from now, our mother will still be our mother, and she’ll be able to say things only a mother can say. And many years from now, our brothers will still be our brothers, and the special union and friendship will continue on and on. “In heaven we won’t rest in peace,” DeStefano declared. Books will continue to be written, buildings and roads constructed, movies produced, and great arts performed. After all, he pointed out, “Heaven will look exactly like our own neighborhoods closely watched by an energetic Lord, running about saving souls and raising the dead.”

DeStefano asserted that he is neither a new age guru nor a TV psychic, palm reader, theologian nor philosopher. He confided that the completion of this book on an imaginary, whimsical trip to eternity was motivated by his strong belief in the afterlife coupled with his deep passion to examine the tenets of Christianity. This was bolstered by studies revealing that 94 percent of the general public believes in heaven. Newsweek even reported years ago that 76 percent of Americans believe in it. The figure among Filipinos for sure will hit the roof as well.

A Travel Guide to Heaven is a marketing pitch for our final destination. Very much like selling a visit to Disneyland or Universal Studios — although some may dislike the parallel between a “sacred eternity” and a noisy, crowded, dizzying amusement park — it allows us to savor the beauty of heaven and why we should not miss the gratifying trip to it.  And if we have to write a marketing communications brief to project its advantages and uniqueness, the document will read something like this: Product “Heaven” is a dynamic place for limitless joy that caters to all people in the world — believers, non-believers, converts alike from all socio-economic strata. Life everlasting is its promise — life with family and friends, life without suffering, life as a super being in a super world.

All these can be had if we are consistently good to our fellowmen; forgive family members and anybody who has offended us; be in community with people to praise and serve the Almighty; accept the passing away of a parent, a sibling or a friend with faith; grin and bear a period of unemployment, fight our way through depressing financial problems without losing hope and becoming bitter; face our own old age and death with bravery and even cheerfulness. Indeed, heaven is no place for arguments and grudges. It will be a paradise filled with love, forgiveness and reconciliation.

“We must know Jesus to get to heaven.” Both Heaven Is for Real and A Travel Guide to Heaven evidently espouse that.  This is manifested from what Colton shares with a degree of accuracy and realism, and the parallel mental pictures and points of view that DeStefano communicates. Indeed, in our travels to heaven, to declare its reality we need Jesus to get there, to guide us and to give us light. As Jonathan Edwards said, “The way to Heaven is ascending; we must be content to travel uphill, though it is hard and tiresome, and contrary to the natural bias of our flesh.”

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