The Shepherd Comforts Us (Rev. Dr. Charley Reeb)
What I Learned at the Masters
Some of you know I am a golfer. And I am a big fan of golf. And the holiest week for a golfer is Masters week. For many years, I was not able to attend the Masters because it often falls during Holy Week and, for some reason, the church expects me to be around at Easter. However, one year Brandy and I were invited to the Masters when the tournament did not fall during Holy Week and it was glorious. Since then, I have had the opportunity to attend The Masters golf tournament a few times times and it never disappoints.
For those of you who have never picked up the bad habit of golf or are not really fans of golf, the Masters is the Super Bowl of Golf, or, if you like, the Disney World of Golf. It is arguably the best tournament played on the best golf course with the best players.
One of the reasons why the Masters is so respected is because of its tradition. Tradition is very sacred in golf and the Masters is a living and breathing museum of golf. The great players of today play the same holes that the great players of the past played. The Masters mystique is its unrelenting history. Granted, some of that history is a bit tainted. Nevertheless, mobs of golf fans pour into Augusta National and treat it like a cathedral. People walk around with a glazed look in their eyes as they take in the immaculate course with its majestic undulations and beautiful Georgia pines. It is true – television does not do it justice. The whole experience reminded me once again that human beings were made for worship.
Will There Be Golf in Heaven?
A friend of mine told me that the first time he went to the Masters he called his wife and said, “I now know what heaven looks like.” He was right, except in heaven, we won’t be worshiping golf. We will be worshiping the one and only Master, Jesus Christ.
The heavenly experience of the Masters did have me wondering, “Will there be golf in heaven?” I am reminded of the old joke about the guy who loved golf. He played every chance he got. One day he asked his golfing buddy, “I wonder if there is golf in heaven?” His friend replied, “I don’t know. I hope so.” That night an angel appeared to him and said, “I heard your question today about golf in heaven. I have good news and bad news. The good news is there is golf in heaven. The bad news is you have a tee time tomorrow morning at 9am.”
Well, that old joke is appropriate for us as we conclude our series on the 23rd Psalm by taking a closer look at the very last phrase: “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” It is appropriate that David concluded the 23rd Psalm this way. As we journey with the Shepherd through good times and bad, through valleys and seasons of growth, our ultimate destination is heaven – dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.
And there is tremendous comfort and strength that comes from this assurance. Behind the curtain of death for believers is a new dimension of life beyond our wildest dreams. What is beneath the mysterious surface of death is a loving, caring God with the answers to all of our questions, the fulfillment of all of our deepest longings, and the fruition of all God’s great promises.
The promise of an afterlife and knowing we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever is one of the most defining and clarifying concepts a person can have.
It puts everything in perspective. You see, knowing our destination gives our lives direction.
A wise pastor put it this way:
“Knowing that there is an afterlife does many things. It steals away the sting of death, puts suffering in perspective, and understands pleasure and beauty as a foreshadowing of things to come. It magnifies the importance of love and relationships and puts intensity into sharing the love of Jesus. It also reminds us, in all decisions, that we will one day stand be held accountable. God will ask us, ‘I gave you these gifts. What did you do with them?’”
That perspective gives clarity to our decisions. Sometimes, complex decisions become much easier when we start with the end in mind.
How do we know that life after death promises to be an overwhelming experience of joy for those who believe? Well David expressed his confidence in this truth by saying he would dwell in the house of the Lord forever. But there are other places in scripture that tell us about the afterlife. Perhaps the most familiar passage of Scripture that promises the gift of life after death is found in John 14:1-3. Here we find Jesus in the upper room comforting his disciples before his own death:
Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. In my father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-3).
These are beautiful words that should comfort believers who find themselves apprehensive about death. This passage also reveals interesting aspects about life after death. For example, the word “rooms” could also be interpreted as “rest areas.” In other words, these rooms are not permanent but provide respite. This implies that death is really a threshold to a whole new journey with God. On this journey we will be provided with comfort and rest along the way.
In addition to the passage in John, we find profound passages about life after death in the letters of Paul. If we had lived during the time of the apostle Paul and we asked him what he believed about life after death, I believe his answer would be what we find in 2nd Corinthians 5:1-2:
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.
Later on in verse five of the same chapter Paul reminds us that God, who has prepared our heavenly dwelling, has given us the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our extraordinary life after death.
Maybe the most compelling of Paul’s words about life after death can be found in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians where Paul reminds us that “if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (verse 19). Paul’s argument is clear: If there is no resurrection of the dead then Christ has not been raised from the dead. If Christ has not been raised from the dead then our faith means nothing (1st Corinthians 15:12-13).
Paul’s conviction leads us to the central promise our Lord gave us about life after death when he said, “Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:19).
As Christians we have nothing to fear from death. With Paul we know that “nothing can separate us from the love of God,” especially death! We are promised that death is simply a journey into a deeper intimacy with God.
Resurrection of the Body
Let me address an important question that is asked of me a lot as a pastor. Every Sunday we recite the Apostles’ Creed. We stand up and say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” It is clear from scripture that our bodies will be resurrected. But does this mean our old bodies, the bodies we have today will be reconstituted by God? Some may say, “I hope not!” Or does this mean we will receive new bodies?
This is a great concern for many people, especially when they consider loved ones who have been cremated or buried at sea. It’s why many Christians insist on being embalmed and buried. What is the Christian answer to this concern? The answer is simple: It doesn’t matter whether you are cremated or embalmed, the body eventually returns to the earth. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Therefore, God will create new bodies for us. Others will still recognize us, but our bodies will be new and improved. We won’t need this old body of ours in heaven. Thank heaven for that!
And I know this is a great hope for many folks who have experienced so much suffering in body, mind and heart. Paul explains more in 2nd Corinthians:
16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2nd Corinthians 4:16-18
What this passage tells us is that as we experience the pain and sorrow of life, we don’t lose heart because we know these experiences are nothing compared to the glory and joy awaiting us in heaven. We also don’t lose heart because God is using our pain and suffering for eternity. It does not go wasted. Now, it is not God’s will that we suffer, but he uses that suffering to grow us and renews us and prepare us for eternity. So, how we respond to suffering has eternal significance. As Paul says, as our outer nature is decaying hurting, aching, our inner nature, our spirit is being more and more renewed, preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond measure.
What is this weight of glory that Paul speaks of? Adam Hamilton speaks of the struggle C.S. Lewis had with this phrase. Lewis wrestled with it for a long time and then he wrote a book about it entitled “The Weight of Glory.” You know what Lewis said is the weight of glory? He said the glory we receive in heaven is not what others think of us. It is what God thinks of us. It is when God approaches you in heaven, throws his big, loving arms around you and says, “I’m so proud of you. Well done, well done.” That is our weight of glory.
I can’t remember where I heard it or learned but our beauty in heaven is something totally different than on earth. We will all be beautiful in heaven because who we are on the inside will be on the outside. Our character, our strength, our growth, our faithfulness, our love, our sensitivity will be seen on the outside, and it will be gorgeous.
The critical lesson in all of this is that everything on earth is fleeting. Paul says what can be seen in temporary. What cannot be seen is eternal. Our bodies, our money, our vanity, our possessions – they don’t last. What lasts is God and our presence with him in glory. And we groan for it. Paul says in our passage today that while we live in this temporary tent, we groan for our new body, our new life, our glorious existence with God in heaven. And so Paul says we are always confident because we know what death means.
Perhaps you are still asking, “Well, what is death going to be like?” Well, I don’t know. “I ain’t dead yet!” However, from my experience as a pastor sitting with people on their death bed, I believe I can give us some idea what it will be like to die.
The experience of death could be compared to something I experienced as a kid. In fact, most of you have experienced this. I would fall asleep in front of the TV or at an event. And my mother or dad would carry me to my bedroom, and put me to bed. When I awoke the next morning, the sun would be shining. I didn’t remember how I got there, but I knew my parents had something to do with it.
I believe death is like that. It is like we have fallen asleep and God has us in his hands. When we awake, the world will be changed, our bodies will be changed and God’s Kingdom will be established forever and ever. We don’t know how we got there, but we know God made it happen.
The most profound attempt at explaining what we can expect from the mystery of death came from my colleague and friend Ed Beck. When Ed was serving a church in Denver, he had a seven year old member of his congregation named Ellen who was dying of an incurable disease. And each time he would visit her in the hospital she would take him by the hand and lead him to other rooms to meet her friends. She was a real precocious child. A month before Ellen died, he was visiting her and she said, “Rev. Beck, my mother told me to talk to you about dying. I don’t want to die. Can you tell me what will happen when I die?”
Ed sat in a rocking chair and put Ellen on his lap and responded, “Ellen, before you were ever born you were in your mother’s tummy, tucked away very near your mommy’s loving heart. At that time, let’s suppose someone had said to you, ‘Ellen, you can no longer live in your mommy’s tummy. It is time for you to die out of your mommy’s tummy.’ Now, Ellen, let’s suppose you said, ‘I don’t want to leave my mommy’s tummy. I love it here. It is nice and comfortable, and I feel very much loved in my mommy’s tummy. I don’t want to die out of my mommy’s tummy. I don’t want to be born because that means I’d have to leave my mommy’s tummy.’”
Ed continued and said, “But Ellen, you already know what happened. You did die out of your mommy’s tummy and look what you discovered. You discovered in this world loving arms to hold you, loving faces smiling at you and everyone wanting to meet your every need. And now for seven years you have discovered how wonderful it is to be out of your mommy’s tummy. In fact, it is so wonderful that you don’t want to die. You don’t want to leave here. You don’t want to leave here because you know you are loved by mommy and daddy, your grandmas, and your brother and so many, many others, including me.”
Ellen thought for a moment about the things Ed was saying to her. And then Ed said, “Ellen, there will soon come a time when you will die, and here is what is going to happen. The moment you die you will discover strong, loving arms holding you, loving faces smiling at you, and everyone will want to meet your every need. You will be surrounded by such love and beauty that soon, very soon you will say, ‘I love it here. I don’t want to leave here.’ And Ellen, you won’t leave. You will remain there and live with Jesus in heaven forever. Ellen, that is what is going to happen when you die.” Then Ed concluded, “Oh, and one last thing. When you welcome me into heaven, take my hand and lead me from room to room so I can meet all your friends. Promise. Promise me you will do that. Promise!”
You know what the most important word in the Christian faith is? Hope. Only the Christian faith can give us hope. To eastern religions, life is an endless series of sufferings that ends with the obliteration of meaning and identity. To atheists and secularists, life ends when you die, so those with the most toys win. Only the Christian faith gives us hope in that what we do now has eternal significance. Only the Christian faith gives us hope in that death is our victory. We will dwell in the house of the Lord forever! And this I know for the Bible tells me so.