It’s around that time of year that we pick up the bible and remember some pretty crazy things. My parents relayed a story about my sister’s household that underlines the difficulty of the Christian story.
K: “mommy I want to go see the baby Jesus.”
E: “Um who told you about the baby Jesus?”
K: “Johnny did at school. I didn’t know about the baby Jesus, but I can’t wait to see him. Can we go see him?”
E: “We can’t go see the baby Jesus.”
K: “What? Why not?”
E: “Because the baby Jesus is dead.”
K: “how did he die?”
E: “Some people killed him.”
K: “How did they kill him?”
My mom heard this conversation from my sister, and promptly told her that she needs to bring Katy to Sunday school so that she doesn’t get into these sort of pickles.
Many of us just relax into the season, letting the pickle melt away into presents, stress, and glowing little children on the lawn. As I was reading the Christmas story last week, instead of focusing on the virgin or the birth or the baby, I brought my eyes to the torn piece of air in which the angels peered through. Apparently to the shepherds it was something that might make you crap your pants. According to a psychological survey of most religions and people without religion… most everyone believes that they will go to heaven when they die. And most people have some sort of idea of what heaven is like. But in light of the inquisitive nature of my niece, what if we were to look at some of the scriptures about heaven and ask some questions.
Why is heaven so scary to the Shepherds? Why are the Harold Angels so excited?
In Isaiah What is the whole deal with coals in heaven? What’s with the holy chant?
In Revelation what’s with the crown tossing? Why in heaven is there this constant chant of praise?
After looking at the various heavenly passages I asked myself, if you could complain about heaven, what would you complain about? I polled my church, and some people felt like it might be too bright. Or the gold would be too slippery on wet days. Another chief complaint that caused us all to not think so jocosely was that someone would miss their family… Ouch. On a lighter note, I found with the above heavenly passages, a major theme is that of incessant praise. When the herald angels rip open the air you hear praise in the highest. When Isaiah sees the lord in his temple, he hears praise. Which makes me wonder after about a week of constant praise, if some get a little bored. So my question is:
Is Heaven Boring?
Because in heaven apparently I’ll I do is praise! And to some this seems weird. Religious people end their sentences with praise God. Praise God. They seem to place it in inopportune moments during your conversation. Praise God. Like a tick. Praise God. Personally I’m not a huge fan of those that need constant reassurance of my approval. Praise God. I’m not a huge fan of dictators that demand my loyalty. Nor do I have much respect for those that crowd around them. Praise God. That suck up to the millionaire. That sit close to the celebrity. Yet from his mouth we read in the psalms “Whoever offers me thanks and praise, he honors me.” Like he is saying ‘What I want most is to be told that I am good and great.’
It’s almost like in this context God craves, our worship like a vain woman wanting compliments, or a vain author presenting their book to people who have no idea who they are, or a vain preacher that wants to be told that their message changed someone’s life. Praise God.
In the bible it seems there is an excessive amount of praise going out from his people. And not only that urging us to praise him. Or perhaps being commanded and demanded to praise him. And it makes one think that heaven might get a little tiresome.
What about Golf? Or the ducks that you are tethered to? No … in the bible we just keep seeing praise. And the urging and surging of more praise.
It might make someone say If that’s all you do… that’s boring… I’ll take my six-pack and you can join me in hell. Because hell has sex, and cupcakes (a lot of them), and my six-pack of beer. And it’s free from all of this out of control praise.
Little Shop
In the musical little shop of horrors, we meet a nice boy named Seymour, and he is in love with Audrey. He meets up with an alien plant is carnivorous. He begins nursing the plant to health with his own blood. Soon the plant grows and needs more blood, and the only thing that can satisfy it is murder.
There is a point in the play where Seymour can’t do it anymore. The murderous lifestyle that the plant has demanded is too much so he comes to a crossroads and says “NO MORE.” But then he remembers his love of his girlfriend, who is with him now because of various plots the plant has developed, one being her ex-boyfriend was dinner. He thinks her love is based on the plant, and so he unwillingly begins killing again.
It is his praise of the thing he loves that turns him, and justifies him feeding his famous plant. This is a great example of Jesus’ Truth that says: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Unbenounced to Seymour, Audrey loved him prior to his fame. Prior to his plant. Yet the tragedy was that he felt her love was contingent on his status. And his love, praise, and treasure of Audrey moved him into a life of service to death.
Cute baby alert!
I’m a ridiculous dad. Out of the gates I was enamored by my baby to the point where I wasn’t even sure she was mine. I would study her features that I thought were flawless and said. Hmm don’t see any bulgy eyes or awkward body shape… Are you sure she’s mine? I had heard every parent thinks their baby is cute. But I wasn’t prepared to actually think it. Someone would come up to me and say she is so cute… and I would graciously say “yes I think so too” But not long after, someone said to me “wow she’s really pretty.” And I didn’t have any issue piping up “Oh my Gosh! I know!” And be so excited that someone could see what I could see. The thing is … I spend a majority of my time with my daughter saying things like “you are so cute, I love you so much, you are the best, you are …” And blather on about something complimentary. I’m sure a psychologist can argue that this is great for a baby’s formation and security. But I’m not doing it so that she can have a great self esteem. I’m doing it because I want to. It is a natural outflow of who I am. Here I am praising my baby. You’re cute you’re cute you’re cute. It’s enough to bore anyone but me.
CS Lewis helped me understand this a bit more when he writes in his reflection of the psalms:
I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. . . . Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. . . . I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?’ The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about….
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you are with care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .
If it were possible for a created soul fully . . . to ‘appreciate’, that is, to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme happiness. . . . To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God — drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him”
So is it boring to enjoy a life of praise? Is it boring to enjoy an eternity of praise? Is heaven’s chant, and call and refrain tiresome? An unending expression that completes our delight; Inner health made audible? Full enjoyment, and demands and commands for you to enjoy. Surely this is only boring and ungenuine, if we don’t see the reality of who we are praising.
Yet it was that boring silly chant that compelled the Angels to rip open the air. Blaze with their glory. In front of the shepherds and yell at the top of their lungs “glory to God in the highest.” They could see a reality that was worth telling somebody about. Just like the good joke, or the lovely mountain, or the cute baby, It isn’t fully enjoyed until you have ripped open the air with your heart expressed how wonderful this is, and asked “DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE.”
They knew who they were praising. The reality was made known to them that this child would stand forth among humanity as the light of the world. What did this mean? “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” A light of such power that the darkness in the world cannot extinguish it. Light means both energy and knowledge. The Angels knew that from this baby born there came the energy and knowledge by which human beings could be delivered from evil and enabled to live life as it ought to be lived.
That with this child, the alcoholic, prostitute and poor would gain access to the kingdom of heaven. Those that trusted in this child would become virtuous and happy, easy in themselves, and useful to others. They would gain eternal life now that would lead them to heaven; to God the Judge, the lover of all, and to the man himself Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant. They would participate in the religion of love; the law of kindness brought to light by the good news. They were celebrating the reality that all who receive this son will enjoy God and themselves: and this would begin to give them the character of the one they praise, make them like God; lovers of all; contented in their lives; and crying out at their death, in calm assurance, ‘O grave, where is your victory! Thanks be unto God, who gives me the victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ.’”
Through this baby a worldwide moral revolution would take place. And what that would mean is that the population of the earth would become transformed into the “Children of light.” Ordinary human beings in their ordinary positions in life were appointed and empowered by this baby born to be in each of their peculiar places, “the light of the world.” It would be no more possible to hide them than it is possible to hide a city on a hill.
It is this, that these Angels in their Boring little scary voice praised “Glory to God!” because they knew that at in the birth of this child the WAR WAS WON!
And though the Shepherds probably didn’t know the full expression of what the Harold angels sung. They knew what a king was, and they knew that some pretty strange creatures were excited about it. So they decided to look for themselves. And they got to see a newborn king.
Hark the herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled"
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
"Christ is born in Bethlehem"
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Christ by highest heav'n adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a Virgin's womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!"
Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth
Hark! The herald angels sing
"Glory to the newborn King!
