Heaven - new life?

Easter always does it. At least, it should. Easter and talk of the resurrection ought to provoke from us some reflections on life after death. What is this resurrection? What is this new life that is being talked about? Where is this paradise that Jesus promises the thief that they will share? If Easter does not do it for us, then usually the death of a loved one does.

It is one of those questions that we ought to reflect upon and discuss, but we need to be careful about what we claim this paradise, this heaven, this new life will look like. A lot of questions and very little dogma. It was several years ago when Eric Clapton lost his young son that he wrote about "Tears in Heaven." There he ponders the question of time, age, and personality. Would his young son remember his father's name? What age will they both be when Eric gets to heaven? Who will be different in heaven? "Will he know my name?" "Will he be the same?" Will we be able to recognize others? Not long ago I was listening to some old CD's and heard in a song, "Will We Burn in Heaven, like we do down here?" I am not sure exactly what that means but I took it to mean will there be passions and desires in heaven? We will want something so badly we can taste it? Certainly there would be those who might suggest that if there are no emotions and passions then heaven will be rather bland and boring. A friend told me during March Madness that heaven is where every team wins. Which may sound good at the beginning, but soon loses its favor when winning would then mean nothing. Streets of gold loose their value when all the streets are gold.

The image that has always carried me was the child in the womb. For nine months it is total darkness, food provided through a tube, and always wet, but suddenly with birth comes light, dryness, eating and air. Nothing in the new life is like the old life, except that everything that was being done in the darkness and the wet was preparation for the new. If the child in the womb had questions, like why didn't I have anything to play with? Those questions just disappear and become unimportant in the new place. My faith hopes for something of the same thing at death. We will be born into a new life that this one has been preparing us for but is totally different. But like the child in the womb I have no more knowledge of what that new life will look like than she does. The best I know is "In life and death, we belong to God."