April 16th 2017
Good morning! I would like to welcome each of you here to this House of the Lord, and in His name, may the promises of the Easter Season be a blessing in your lives.
Today, we join with all other Christians around the world in rejoicing in the fact that Christ triumphed over death. We celebrate that Jesus lives again. And through His triumph over death, redemption and salvation and eternal life became a reality. Not only does Jesus live again, but we all do. That is the heart of the Easter message.
And we take comfort in this message, and in the knowledge that our friends and loved ones who have moved on, are continuing to live in Paradise. And we have hope for them, and for ourselves, in the double sense of having assurance that we too, with Christ, will live again, and that we will be reunited by those who have gone before.
But what is this next life, that is promised to us, going to be like? Christ Himself preached a great deal about the kingdom of God. In fact, it may have been the subject He preached about the most. But we are never given a clear description of what Heaven, or Paradise, will be like.
A few years ago I was reading a book called Heaven, by someone named Randy Alcorn. In his book he describes how early Christians had no fear of death, and celebrated when someone moved on to the Kingdom of God. He explained that over time, our mindset somehow lost this sense of assurance, and he suggested it was based on the fact that we don’t know what to expect.
How can people be comfortable with what is going to one day occur for each of us, if we don’t know what to expect? Popular imagination would have us believe that Heaven is some sort of ethereal dimension, bright, and stark white, with people wandering around in robes, with wings, and harps. Some people envision Heaven as a non-physical realm of consciousness. Other ideas are equally far removed from our everyday experience.
Let me tell you how I envision the Paradise of the next life. This morning I want you to become an artist and envision in your mind the following…
Imagine a tropical setting. A lush island with a white sandy beach, and shallow, clear blue-green water. The sky is blue, and there isn’t a cloud to be seen. The air is very warm, and you walk through the surf, either enjoying a moment of solitude, or holding hands with someone you are close to. The water is also very warm, and you feel a gentle breeze, which carries upon it the aroma of flowers and savory cooking.
You wander to the far side of the island, and find a tranquil lagoon, and inland, a beautiful waterfall. There are, scattered about, pavilions where people sit in the shade, sipping refreshing drinks. Cooking fires are set up, and some skilled chefs prepare your favorite meals…there is roast pig, delicious salads, chicken, steak, vegetables, fruit, and assorted sweet goods.
The breeze carries with it the sounds of music and laughter. You stop from time to time to visit with friends and loved ones. Everyone you care about is here. You spend your day relaxing, feasting, swimming, playing sports, and reading a good book.
As the day grows long, the sun sets, and campfires pop up. There are sing-alongs, late night hot dogs and smores, and fireworks. The stars twinkle in the night sky and with deep contentment, and feeling fully relaxed, you fall asleep on a pile of cushions on the sand, feeling blessed by the fact that you are in Paradise.
Consider another scenario.
The people, your friends and loved ones, are still with you. As is the music, the food, and the joy, hope, love and peace. But, instead of a tropical island, picture in your mind trees, mountains and refreshing lakes. A summer breeze refreshes you as you fish at the end of a dock. You hear the sounds of children laughing as they look for crayfish scuttling amongst the rocks.
Consider a third scenario, similar to this last one, but instead of mountains its several lakes connected together, perhaps much like Muskoka and people often spend time speeding around in their boats. Sometimes, at night, you watch the fireworks reflect in the water. And, if you’re really lucky, you’ll see the Aurora Borealis dance for you.
Or perhaps for you Paradise is a ski slope, with perfect snow, and a comfortable chalet with a roaring fire, hot springs, and Christmas lights.
Or, perhaps Paradise is a desert of pristine dunes dotted every so often with a flourishing oasis.
It could be that for you, Paradise is touring rustic villages, and sampling ever changing foods and music, and culture.
Perhaps for you Paradise is having the time to learn new things, or perfecting a craft, becoming a painter or sculptor, or potter.
Perhaps for you, Paradise is working with animals. Or perhaps it is dancing, singing, playing musical instruments, creating new masterpieces surpassing Beethoven or Mozart.
Or perhaps for you Paradise will be something familiar.
A few months ago I spent the weekend with a group of friends at a cottage. One of my closet friends suggested that we all take some time to check out the scenery. As it was January, and a little chilly, most of my friends did not bother, but I took some time one afternoon to wander out behind the cottage, exploring the property, and the river that it overlooks. I went down to a cement wall which separates the lawn from the gently moving water. And I stood on that wall, trying to soak it all in. It was a beautiful place. And I found myself feeling invigorated there, and I thought to myself “You can breathe easier here”. Later, I believe as we were on the highway driving home, my friend told the group of us that his families’ cottage is his most favorite place in the world.
I have no special, fond memories of that place, nor any sense of connection to it, but I understood what he meant. And, having spent a weekend there myself, and having that sense of “you can just breathe easier here”, I can understand why my friend felt that way.
Where is your most favorite place to be? Where is your version of my friend’s cottage? What is your cottage? For my wife, her cottage might be Walt Disney World. For me, my cottage, or my favorite place in the whole world is Camp Noronto. I have so many amazing memories of so many reunions and youth camps at Noronto, and have made so many friends over the years, that going to Camp Noronto always gives me tremendous joy.
It is another one of those places that I find it’s just easier to breathe there. And it is a place where I feel particularly close to God.
Camp Noronto is not just my favorite place in the world, it is also a place that I go to in order to be spiritually rejuvenated, or recharged. We talk about our Temple being a place of healing and reconciliation of the Spirit. That is exactly, what Camp Noronto is for me and many others. It is a balm for my soul. It is a place of healing.
So perhaps for you, Paradise would be your cottage, whatever form it might take for you.
Or perhaps Paradise for you is any number of different things, different aspects…location, food, culture, and how you spend your time.
But whatever Paradise offers you, it is my conviction that it will include communities of joy, hope, love and peace. It will include opportunities and a sense of purpose and achievement.
And we are only scratching at the surface. And we are of course only speculating. I cannot tell you 100% certainty what Paradise will be like, but I do believe it will be something that we will have some sense of familiarity with, that we can relate to.
You see the author of the book I read makes the case that the scriptures do offer some clues, which suggest that Heaven is not a ghostly realm, but a physical realm in which we will continue to have bodies, and live out our eternal existence in an idealized version of our mortal reality. The details and the specifics might remain a mystery, but we understand the concept of physical reality, of rock, and sky, and food and music, and of communities of joy, hope, love and peace. It’s a vision that we can comprehend.
If someone were to ask me, where their departed loved one is now, I would answer “Bora Bora”.
This view of the afterlife then becomes immediately more comforting, because we can understand it a little better, we can relate to it, and we can then appreciate what Christ earned for each of us.
Christ died to bring hope to the world, and if we understand what He achieved for us, if we are understand where we are going, we can all share in that hope, and we can bring that hope to others.
But my purpose in sharing this with you is not to encourage you to lose focus on this life. While we have good reason to have hope for the life yet to come, we have just as good of a reason to live this live to it’s fullest. Some might wonder “if the next life is so awesome, what are we doing here?” it would take another sermon to explore such questions, but to put it simply, since we are here now, we are called by God to live this life now.
The message I want you to take from this is that if we can have hope for a life that we have yet to experience, it only follows that we should have hope for the life that we are already living.
And I want you to have hope for this life, so that you in turn can extend that blessing, that gift, the gift of hope, to as many people as possible.
Hope is a powerful means of changing, or transforming someone, for the better. And the world greatly needs positive transformation for the better. And that is what we must do, because that is what Christ did.
The scriptures are full of stories of Christ transforming people. In some cases, the transformation is obvious. He brought hope, and transformation, through the forgiveness of sins, through healing and through acceptance; and by helping people understand that they are of worth. In other cases, we are not made to know how the lives He touched were transformed. But I want you to consider this scenario…
Imagine a sprawling city. Jerusalem. As it existed some 2,000 years ago. Imagine the buildings, the aromas, the hustle and bustle of people and beasts of burden. The Messiah, Jesus the Christ, has been arrested, He has been taken before Pontius Pilot, sent to King Herrod, sent back to Pilot, found guilty, scourged, beaten, and sentenced to death. In the morning, on a bright, hot day, He is driven out of the city, and forced to carry His own cross to Mount Calvary, also known as Golgotha, the Place of Skulls.
You are one of the disciples who saw Christ on the cross. The scriptures are not entirely clear who all were there, but apparently there were several women, who were not as likely to have been arrested, and possibly John the Apostle.
And as one of those disciples, you watch Christ being dragged to His cross, He is made to lie down upon it, and you watch as His hands and feet are pierced with spikes. Then, a sign is nailed to the top of the cross, declaring that Jesus is King of the Jews. The cross is finally lifted up, and placed into position.
Hours pass by, and the crowds watch as Christ slowly leaves this world. You watch this man, who proclaimed peace, love, mercy, forgiveness, and the Kingdom of God; who healed people, who fed the hungry, who gave sight to the blind, who charged His followers to take care of the poor; linger in His suffering, convicted and tortured as a common criminal, while the murderer Barabbas goes free.
You are of course overcome with grief. But you are also angry, and you are filled with thoughts of vengeance against those who have crucified your Messiah.
And, then, you hear your Lord, the very same man who has been betrayed, beaten, forced to carry his own cross, nailed to it to suffer an agonizing death, say these words:
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” –Luke 23:35
As a witness of this event, how might this experience change your life? How might have you been transformed?
Now you are the repentant thief. You hang on a cross beside Jesus. You turn your head to see Him, and you can’t fathom why this man has been made to suffer. You feel the pain of the spikes through your hands and feet, and the sting of the full sun upon your body. You feel your thirst, and the anguish of your situation, and you shake your head, wondering again why this Jesus of Nazareth is suffering beside you.
You have heard of His teachings, and you have heard of His miracles, and you know that Jesus has done nothing to warrant such treatment. You think about your own life. You think about your sins. Your misconduct. You know that you have done wrong. You know that you have disappointed God. You know why you have been nailed to your cross. You know that you deserve your fate.
And you know that you are not worthy of mercy, or compassion, or charity, or grace. Your sins cannot be forgiven. You are unclean. And yet, something stirs inside your soul, and you become angered when your fellow thief mocks Jesus, and you tell him to leave Jesus alone, and then you say to Jesus…
“Lord, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” –Luke 23:43 IV (adapted)
And the Lord turns His head to face you, and He says:
“Truly I tell you; Today you shall be with me in paradise.” –Luke 23:44 IV (adapted)
You don’t have much time left. But, in the minutes or hours that you do have, how might Christ’s words have changed your life? How might you have been transformed?
It is my belief that in each case, Christ’s actions or words gave hope to those involved. But we will never know exactly in what form that hope manifested. Was it hope for humanity? Was it hope for things to come? We don’t know.
But each of us must strive to transform the lives of our brothers and sisters, even though we may never know the impact of how our actions and words might make a positive, and potentially lifesaving change.
We must help all those people who feel unworthy, to understand that they too, like the Repentant Thief, are, regardless of who they are, or what they have done, worthy of God’s mercy, compassion, charity, grace, and love.
As Christ brought hope to the world, we must do our part, to share that hope with as many lives as we can touch.
This past week was a very unpleasant week for my coworkers and I. On Tuesday morning, one of our colleagues jumped to his death inside our building. No one I know at work, including myself, knows who this person was. But he was still our co-worker, and we were really affected by it.
We tend to take life for granted. We each take our own lives for granted, but we take everyone else’s lives for granted too.
It is so important that we never forget that we don’t know what burdens someone else is struggling with. But how we live, what we say, our presence in someone else’s life could be a desperately needed blessing, a way of bringing about what might best be described as a measure of personal redemption, and salvation….not for the next world, but for this world. Never underestimate your own potential to bring about positive transformation in the lives of someone else. You may never know how that transformation manifests. But that is no reason to take the lives of those with whom we come in contact with, for granted.
Now I don’t mean for this sermon to be excessively heavy. Easter is of course a reason to be joyful, a day to celebrate. And I rejoice in the knowledge that just as Christ lives again, my co-worker also lives again. I rejoice in the belief that he is now in Bora Bora.
And because I know that God is a god of love, mercy, compassion, and grace, I know that my co-worker will not be shunned in the afterlife. I know that Christ greeted him open arms, taking away forever, that man’s burdens and pain.
And I rejoice knowing that we are called now, to bring this sense of redemption and salvation, and hope to the people of this world.
So let us be a joyful people.
In the year 2000, the Prophet of the Church presented revelation which included these words, now found in Section 161:
“Be a joyful people. Laugh and play and sing, embodying the hope and freedom of the gospel.” –Section 161:7
So you see, we have received a divine commission to be joyful. To laugh, play and sing, and through modeling that behavior, and being mindful of how we respond to others, we can transform the lives of those with whom we interact with.
And if you can, go deeper. Help someone, to build his or her cottage. Wherever, and whatever, that cottage might be. Empower them to have their own cottage. Where they too can experience reconciliation and healing of the spirit.
In closing, I would like to share with you the final verse from our most recent revelation, canonized in 2016, Section 165:6c, which fittingly ties in with Easter:
“And, always remember, the way of suffering love that leads to the cross also leads to resurrection and everlasting life in Christ’s eternal community of oneness and peace. Trust in this promise.”
Amen.
~Sermon Vault~ 