Ordinary 34 Christ, King of the Universe

The Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe 2016 – Cycle C 2 Samuel 5:1-3; Psalm 122; Colossians 1:12-20, Luke 23:35-43

Is there life after death?  – Yes?  How do you know?  What certainty can you offer?

We believe and profess each week in the Creed of Nicaea, “and I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.”  What are we looking forward toward?  What is the life of the world to come?    What is Jesus offering to the convicted criminal crucified alongside him: ‘This day you will be with me in paradise”?   What is paradise, heaven?

Consider our imagery and ideas of heaven.  You can regularly find them in the cartoons of almost every issue of the New Yorker magazine.  Heaven is “up” in the clouds, somewhere. 

It’s a place with pearly gates as an entrance, a welcoming Saint Peter, naked babies as angels with harps, singing and saints.  For many people heaven is envisioned as just an excellent and more wonderful version of life on earth: uncle George goes fishing every day and is always catching “the big one” while dad is at the golf course getting his hole-in-ones, mom is gardening and not a weed or beetle are in sight, and it is always great weather for a ball game.  We make a lot of jokes about who is and who is not in heaven or at least the level of heaven we think certain people should be in.  And jokes and cartoons are appropriate.  For this is a very immature, childish understanding of what Jesus is promising.  Is this what “life of the world to come” means?  Is this what a criminal wants to hear about in his death-agony?

This heavenly paradise is aptly described by the composer, Leonard Bernstein: “The light is flat. The air is sterile. There is nothing to dream. Nowhere to go. Nothing to know.” [See Symphony #3, “Kaddish”]

In our post-modern world, we have come to have an almost desperate need to know what is on the other side of the veil of death exhibited by a growing number of books such as: Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back and 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death & Life.  Sounds like heaven is a vacation spot.  You come and go, sort of like OZ.  It is hard to take seriously.

New Yorker cartoons are just as inaccurate in regard to hell.  Down under we go, naked people prodded by devils with pitchforks and horns – and fire, lots of fire!  The Bible itself is a little darker in its depiction: Gehenna, a garbage dump just outside the walls of Jerusalem which was always smoking from an underground fire from which we have derived the imagery of an unquenchable fire, darkness, gnashing of teeth, smoke, exclusion, and eternal punishment.  Images brought to perfection in Dante’s “Inferno.”   Hell also has its book list including, 23 Minutes in Hell: o

ne man’s story about what he saw, heard, and felt in that place of torment. 

Pope John Paul II pointed out that the essential characteristic of heaven, hell and purgatory is that they are states of a human soul, rather than places, as commonly understood in human language. This language of place, (heaven: up, hell: down, purgatory: in the middle) is inadequate to describe these spiritual realities that exist beyond our material world.  To continue to hold on to the images of clouds, fire, pitchforks, harps, pearly gates, darkness, white garments and horns close off pathways to understanding.  That maybe why people today, believer and non-believer, do not take much of this life after death stuff seriously.  It has been portrayed so comically.  Again, what is Jesus offering to this dying criminal and to us?

Pope John Paul cautions that the images of heaven and hell that Sacred Scripture present to us show the complete fulfillment and a life with God and the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, heaven and hell indicate the state of those who freely and definitively unite or separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy. Our temporal depictions have always been unsatisfactory. [See General Audience of Wednesday, 28 July 1999]

God is the infinitely good and merciful Father. But humanity, called to respond to God freely, can unfortunately choose to accept or reject God’s love and forgiveness once and for all, thus uniting or separating ourselves for ever from joyful communion with God.  Heaven is not a reward or hell a punishment imposed externally by God.  Hell and heaven are simply the culmination of a person’s life choices. There should be no surprises.  [See General Audience of Wednesday, 28 July 1999]  Heaven and hell are a necessary and healthy reminder of our freedom.  These beliefs tell us more about ourselves than God.

Consider the two responses to the crucified and dying Jesus.  “Save yourself and us.”  Here is an escapist drive.  A person not willing to take responsibility for their own actions nor to experience the consequences of their choices.  The two criminals are guilty.

The second response is much more nuanced: “Have you no fear of God.  We deserve our punishment…Jesus, remember me”.  A spiritually mature and humble person acknowledges what they have done, accepts responsibility and asks for mercy.  This person is filled with hope and trust and not fear.

Heaven and hell are necessary and healthy reminders of our freedom.  Probably the best way to deal with heaven and hell though is not to be concerned about them but rather to follow the instruction of the two men dressed in white garments who stood by the Apostles at the Ascension of Our Lord.  They said, “Men [and women] of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?”  In other words stopped being concerned about an unknown.  Rather, look around you and with the joy of the Gospel and the mercy of the Father do the work of building the Kingdom of God as Jesus, by his example, taught you.  Help create the life of the world to come.  Amen.