In and Within 8 Our Father, who art in Heaven

[HKHaugan]

In and Within 8 Our Father, who art in Heaven…

There is a country song that says, “Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to go now.” Typical of our fallen nature is the longing for a place, ‘feel good’ place, where there is personal intellectual, emotional and spiritual security. A ‘Summer’ place, our ‘wish’ place, the ‘perfect’ place that goes beyond the imperfections of this world. Heaven is a return to the Garden of Eden, a utopia, a Shangri-la, the idyllic tropical island, a place where, as another song beckons us, ‘we can leave the world behind.’ We talk about having had experiences we thought were ‘a taste of Heaven.’ But rather than self-extension of our half empty glass we need to go out of ourselves and rely on Scripture-extension to give us some clues to the full glass future.

Let’s start with Jesus’ preparing His disciples for His death. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going (Jn.14:1-4 NIV).”

What is Jesus saying here? First, the context. Jesus has called His disciples together for His last meal with them. He is informing them not only that He will be going away but that He will in a very short while be betrayed to death so He is giving them a new commandment to love one another as He has loved them. All of this is a shock to them and beyond their understanding at that point. He knows their confused anguish since the disciples, like all of us, lead from the heart. That’s why He says “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me…” Here is the key, the transcending reality---trust. They have been with Jesus all during His Galilean mission and what He did during that time was to demonstrate God’s heart, His person, His spiritual depth, His love and His grace. This is the Messiah and Messiahs don’t die. But they will soon find out that in the promised Messiah there is a deeper reality, a deeper way and a deeper love. In Jesus, the true Messiah, they will see the heart of God on the Cross and this new depth, all of it, Jesus had lived out before them in faith, belief, trust, giving them and us these keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Now it would be their time, their ministry, their mission to take up a personal cross of faith in Jesus to give the world the new commandment of His love.

Second, their troubled hearts. Jesus knows their hearts at that moment. It is always the present wherever we are, when ever we think and feel and have a choice to make to handle what goes on in any moment. He knows we have no control over circumstance and circumstance is always a present stress.

As an aside for this human predicament---

Trouble is the stubble on the bubble of the moment when trouble feels double when you mumble and tumble, shiver and quiver, your heart moaning and groaning and a tear makes it clear that fear is near because you are here and alone in yourself with your heart on the shelf you reach out in trust since you’ve been a bust when you’ve taken control, got yourself in a hole, feel shut out when you’re out there with no one to share, wishing you could shout, ‘Why me? What’s it all about?’ Been there, done that, been at bat, struck out, started to pout but that had no clout, felt sorry for myself, went back on the shelf, that didn’t work life doesn’t perk, wishing I were fishing ’cause life keeps dishing a mess of distress without a caress. Trouble? Been at the wall, had a fall, no one to call, so in the end I turned to a friend who’s been through it all and in simplicity with complete felicity He said the words I needed that moment to ponder and foment,

“Do not let your hearts be troubled, trust in God, trust also in me.”

Heaven is not about me and what I wish could be. It’s all about Him and where He is. Where He is is where He wants me to be. It was His perfect faith that is the way. His perfect mind’s thoughts are the truth. His life is the perfect Spirit in action. A taste of Heaven? It’s what faith in Him produces in the here and now. Will we let Him show us who we are, what we are and the tremendous opportunity to discover our true potential in Him?

Heaven is wherever Jesus is. Heaven is the presence of Jesus. Heaven is the final realization of His presence. He is the fulfillment of the moment and every next moment is the present. Heaven is the eternal present relationship we have with Him. It’s the realization that we have become what He intended through His death and Resurrection. Heaven is the Father's house. Paul grasped this reality when He said, “ We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! (1Cor.13:12 The Message).”