Sermon on January 10, 2010
Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Dayton Edmonds, a United Methodist missionary, tells this tale about a poor man who had a vision in his dream. And his dream was of a heavenly city where everything was perfect. Growing very weary of his living, he decided to go in search of his heavenly city of his dreams. So he gathered what few belongings he had and started on his journey. He walked. All day long he walked. And as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams—how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. All day long he walked with this one thought, and then it was evening time. He had not yet come to the heavenly city of his dreams. So he decided to make camp right where he was. He took out a crust of bread, gave thanks to God, and ate it. And then, just before he went to sleep, he took off his shoes and he put them in the path, facing them in the direction that he would continue his journey the next day. And, then, the poor man went to sleep.
Little did he know that in the middle of the night, a trickster came along, picked up his shoes and turned them around, facing them back in the direction from which he had come. Early the next morning, the poor man awoke. Taking out his crust of bread, he once again gave thanks to God, and ate it, and then he walked to the path, and he slipped on his shoes. And he began to walk in the direction that his shoes were facing. All day long he walked, and as he walked, he had but one thought: the heavenly city of his dreams and how perfect it was going to be when he arrived. He walked until it was almost evening.
He looked off in the distance and he saw it! The heavenly city of his dreams! It wasn't as large as he thought it was going to be, and it looked strangely familiar. The poor man walked until he found a strangely familiar street, and he turned down the strangely familiar street, and he walked until he found a strangely familiar house. And he knocked on the door, and when the door was opened, he was greeted by a strangely familiar family. The poor man went inside and lived happily ever after in the heavenly city of his dreams.
Sometimes a new perspective leads to a new life—a new sense of place and purpose—and perhaps even a living conviction that Heaven itself isn’t so far away. Racine, Wisconsin, or maybe Burlington—the Heavenly city of our dreams! On some days, maybe.
And yet I tend to be suspicious of theologies and explanations that lean toward an understanding of Heaven being simply a matter of perspective. There are those who claim that in a very real sense, Heaven is not a place—not a destination, but rather a state of mind—a way of embracing the present and experiencing God each day. My hesitation with that line of thinking comes from the fact that for so many in this world, daily life is an absolute struggle to survive. While some may be able to find Heaven in the day-to-day, there are simply those for whom life is a living Hell. And it’s hard for me to imagine myself saying to a man suffering from severe bouts of depression, or to a woman in an abusive situation, or to an orphan in a war-torn country, “Don’t worry. Heaven is here—it’s just a matter of your perspective!”
I doubt very much that I could stand by that explanation of Heaven. And yet… And yet we have these gospel stories where again and again and again we hear John the Baptist and then Jesus saying things like, “The kingdom of Heaven is near!” “Repent! Believe! For the kingdom of Heaven is near!”
Coming right out of Christmas, we have these stories about Heaven’s nearness fresh in our minds. An angel appears to Mary and later an angel appears to Joseph. A heavenly host of angels appears to the shepherds living in the field! These are just the first gospel stories where the boundary between Heaven and earth seems amazingly thin.
And then throughout his teaching, Jesus paints a picture of Heaven that is anything but far-distant. “The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed…” “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed with flour…” “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure in a field…”
At one point, in fact, in Luke’s gospel, the Pharisees ask Jesus when the kingdom of God is coming and Jesus responds, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
For Jesus the boundary between Heaven and earth is thin—perhaps even nonexistent. In today’s story from Luke’s gospel, we find Jesus by the River Jordan. It always feels strange to me that every year we go from baby Jesus to big Jesus all in one week. But here we are—and Jesus the adult is being baptized and we see something of Heaven’s nearness.
Luke paints a complicated picture for us here. Clearly a movement is getting off of the ground. The people are “filled with expectation”—excited about John and excited about the coming Messiah. We can imagine that they’re showing up at the Jordan in droves to be baptized. At the same time, Herod doesn’t like what he’s seeing. Crowds like this today could spell “uprising” tomorrow, and so for the sake of Rome’s control in the region, he puts John in prison. And so the world that sees Jesus’ baptism isn’t much different from the world that received his birth: violent, unstable, corrupt.
And the amazing thing is that it’s in the very presence of a violent, unstable, and corrupt world that the heavens are opened. “Now when all the people were baptized,” Luke writes, “and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.”
I wonder what that looked like. I wonder what that felt like. I wonder if people standing there looked up and said to each other, “Well, would you look at that? The heaven is opening up. I’ll be darned.” Or perhaps whatever happened in that moment was really too wonderful to describe. That’s probably true, isn’t it? Whatever descriptions we think we have of Heaven—they all probably fall wonderfully short of capturing it all.
One thing we do know from reading the gospels, however, is that there is something of Heaven’s nearness that is worth paying attention to. Beginning with Jesus’ birth and baptism and unfolding through the gospel stories, the boundary between Heaven and earth seems so paper-thin. The kingdom of Heaven—the kingdom of God, Jesus says over and over again, is closer than you think.
The question we might bring to that observation, though, is “So what? So what if Heaven is really nearby?” Well, for one thing, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might find ourselves living a little more expectantly—eager to catch a glimpse of Heaven here or there—in a relationship, in a moment of joy or wonder, in the intricate uniqueness of a snowflake clinging to the windowpane…
But also, if the kingdom of Heaven is really nearby, we just might challenge ourselves to shape the world around us in its heavenly form! We know the truth, and the truth is that there are places in this world where Heaven must feel like a far-distant fairy tale. And yet Jesus calls us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done,” and so we become God’s agents of heavenly nearness! Perhaps God is calling you to be one who opens the heavens to a certain place in this world.
That may be an interesting way to sum up the Christian life—recognizing the kingdom of Heaven when it appears and creating the kingdom of Heaven when it is most needed.
My prayer this morning is that in the coming days and weeks, Jesus might come to you like a trickster, pointing your shoes in a new, heavenward direction when you least expect it—helping you find your way to the kingdom of Heaven—helping you share the news that yes, the kingdom of Heaven is near! Amen.
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