Easter is glorious, the most important day on the Christian calendar because we remember and celebrate that through Christ's death we have been reconciled with our God. It is easy to let Easter become ho-hum, however, because we don't really understand what this means. I am reading a new book entitled Imagining Heaven and the author says:
"I'm convinced a main reason many people (Christian or not) live materialistic, self-centered lifestyles is their poor view of the life to come. They can't imagine Heaven, so they don't live for it."
Mea culpa. If Heaven is a bland, amorphous place where everybody sits forever in some kind of church service, it's hard to get excited, especially if we have a brochure of Maui in our hand. But fortunately, Heaven is not like that if we are to believe the experiences of people who have had near death experiences (NDEs) and who have talked about it.
The forward to the book is written by a pastor who had been declared dead at the scene of a horrendous traffic accident but sprung to life quite a few minutes after medics had placed the sheet over him. The Heaven he describes is anything but boring and the sense of overwhelming love was, well, overwhelming. A number of other accounts are offered and the important point the author makes is that they are all consistent with Scripture.
As I am preparing for Easter I am trying to imagine what Heaven looks like because I want to understand, to the point that a human mind can, the enormity of the Prize that Christ won for us and then try to live with that finish line in view. As C.S. Lewis said,
"Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in'; aim at earth and you will get neither."
