Shadows of Heaven

Let's say I went to heaven and came back. You ask me, dude, what was it like? I reply, dude, it was absolutely eurphasic. You're like, what? Yeah, everything was eurphasic. You say, uh, I dunno wut dat iz... can you at least tell me what it looked like? I say well, everything was made of a composite of talleet and glub-glub. You're like, the heck? I say fine. Everything was, like, gold. You say, ohhhh! Gold! That I can understand.

The point is I'm trying to describe to you something you don't know, heaven. If I describe it in terms that you also don't know, what's the use in that? Cities made of pure gold with gates of pearl may be the closest thing we can come to in terms of understanding the grandeur, glory, and majesty of what we'll see in heaven. C.S. Lewis makes the point that we ought not to think, well, gold, what use have we for gold in heaven? Gold is simply the closest approximation we have; it's a limit of our descriptive capabilities. Having never been to heaven, heavenly things must be described in earthly terms, since we have only experienced earthly things.

Now, imagine this. Suppose you and I are standing together, and I ask you hey, have you ever seen Thomas? You reply, no, I haven't. I say, actually, he's standing around that corner! You can see his shadow. From his shadow you can distinguish his figure, something about his height, his posture. But as you try to imagine what Thomas actually looks like, the best you can do is extrapolate. When you see Thomas, you might say, when I saw the shadow I did see a vague form of what he was like, but now that I see the real Thomas, I see him with depth, color, fullness. Though I had hints of what his shape was, now I see clearly.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

1 Corinthians 13:12

What we see here on earth are simply shadows of what are to come. That's quite comforting to know that the best things we experience here on Earth... peace and quiet after a long day of work... side-splitting hilarity in the midst of friends... the satisfaction that comes from a job well done... these are just hints of the things in store for us in heaven. Jesus told us that he's prepared a room for each of his followers in his father's house. I enjoy life, and I think I cling rather too tightly to the things I do have here, but it is quite nice to know that when it all ends, I'll finally be at home.